Lightness, Not Power, Makes Audi’s Electric Sports Car Special

• Journalist drives the Audi Concept C, which is more of a close-to-production prototype than a design study.
• The prototype has an almost fully functional interior and enough power to launch spiritedly.
• Audi will launch the production model based on this concept in 2027 as a pure EV with no combustion option.

Audi shocked everybody when it announced that the radical Concept C would spawn a production model that wouldn’t look too different. But it was banking on more than just the shock factor of the design and it promises that its series electric sports car would also be a blast to drive.

Just over a month after unveiling the design study, Audi invited members of the press to test drive an evolution of the initial static concept. Thomas from Autogefuhl got behind the wheel of the concept, which is more of a prototype, really, and praised it for the way it feels going down the road.

Thomas notes that the car he drives in the video is a different one from the one he previously walked around in a studio. There are subtle differences and different functionality in the interior, which, just like the exterior, is very close to what you will be able to buy come 2027.

This car won’t become an electric TT in production form and it won’t revive that name. It’s a bigger car that would sit between the TT and R8. The production Concept C will also offer superior performance with single-motor rear-wheel drive variants or dual-motor all-wheel drive power available.

The car Thomas drives in the video has a single motor driving the rear wheels. He performs a launch from a standstill up to around 56 mph (90 km/h), and I actually tried timing it based on the acceleration run in the video. It looks like it’s about a five-second car to sixty, so it probably doesn’t have much more than 300 horsepower.

Unlike most EVs you can buy these days, even ones designed to perform well around a track, the production C will keep its weight down. It’s not uncommon these days to have performance EVs weighing 4,850 pounds (2.2 tonnes) or more, like the Porsche Taycan or the new kid on the block from China, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra. But Audi wants to keep the production sports car’s total mass under 4,000 pounds (1.8 tonnes), which will not only require less power to accelerate quickly, but also improve its cornering and braking ability. The concept weighs a claimed 3,725 lbs (1,690 kg).

Audi Concept C (2025) new live images

Photo by: Audi

Thomas says the car feels great to drive, a bit like you would expect an electric Porsche sports car to feel. The lower weight definitely helps with agility and he also praises the steering as being very well-judged and confidence-inspiring. The reason for the lower weight is the use of a smaller-capacity battery, which sacrifices some range in the name of feeling like a sports car. Porsche is likely doing the same with the upcoming electric 718.

So not only does it look good, at least according to our editor-in-chief, who saw it in Munich last month, but it’s also shaping up to be one of the most fun-to-drive EVs on the market. It could be so good that it might even steal some of the 718 EV’s thunder (or lightning, in this case), especially if it looks like that and undercuts it on price.

More Audi EV Stories

Our colleagues at Motor1 reached out to Audi to learn more about the upcoming production sports car. The manufacturer confirmed that it would be purely electric, with no combustion variant planned. Audi didn’t confirm whether the new EV sports car would share its underpinnings with the 718, only saying that it will be built on a new platform “that will be shared within the [Volkswagen] Group.” But at this point, it’s largely assumed the two will be related.

Between all the information we have about it and this new driving video, I can’t help but be excited for 2027 when the car comes out. Audi already offers a rear-wheel-drive EV that’s great to drive, the A6 e-tron—I tried it around some of Europe’s best mountain passes and was very impressed— but that’s considerably heavier and more comfort-oriented than the sports car and not necessarily focused on providing a thrilling EV driving experience.

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– The InsideEVs team