SAN FRANCISCO—Luxury electric SUVs must be like buses: you wait ages for one and then three show up all at once. That's certainly how it feels right now—first it was the Mercedes-Benz EQC, then last week BMW showed us the iNext, and on Monday night it was the Audi e-tron. This one is going to reach showrooms first—production just started at a carbon-neutral plant in Belgium in the past few weeks, and US deliveries are scheduled to begin in mid-2019.

That's sufficiently far off that Audi is still in the process of homologating the US version for sale, so some of its vital statistics are still TBA. We can't tell you how exactly much power you get for $74,800, although the European version is 300kW (402hp), if that helps. It hasn't undergone EPA testing yet, so there's no official word of how many miles of range the 95kWh lithium-ion battery provides. (Again, if it's helpful, the e-tron earned a 400km range on the very different European WLTP test.)

Audi

Audi

Audi

Audi

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Audi

And I'm sad to say the e-tron's coolest feature— those side-view cameras —will require some changes to federal vehicle regulations before we can get them here in the US. That goes for the matrix-beam headlights, too. That's a shame, because this is an electric Audi that was designed with the US in mind. The company expects us to be the biggest market for the e-tron, and it's pitching this one straight into the mainstream. There are no flashy falcon wing doors or a massive panoramic screen like those in the bigger Tesla Model X . Neither are there futuristic design or racetrack credentials as with the Jaguar I-Pace

Instead, it's a conventional design and one that's unmistakably an Audi first and foremost. The e-tron doesn't shout about its electric credentials but slots neatly alongside the conventionally powered Q7 and Q8 SUVs that make up Audi's other offerings in the C segment luxury SUV market. Despite the buff looks, it's rather aerodynamic for its size—the drag coefficient is 0.27 with the virtual mirrors, 0.28 with normal ones. If you drove one past the average person on the street, other than a lack of noise, I doubt they'd think there wasn't an internal combustion engine under the hood.

That makes perfect sense when you realize that the e-tron is built on a modified version of its MLB Evo architecture. Things like suspension mounting points, the climate-control system, the vehicle's electronic network, and the suite of driver assists and infotainment are common to the Q7 and Q8. They're also common to Audi's sedans and the other Volkswagen group vehicles that use that architecture.

But everything between the axles is all new. There's a pair of electric motors, either side of the 95kWh lithium-ion battery pack. There was much talk of powertrain cooling, since keeping batteries and motors in the right temperature range is key to getting the most from EV performance. Each motor features a "cooling lance" running through it, and excess heat from the electronics is recycled for use in the climate-control system, which should be a big help to range in the winter.

The battery is liquid-cooled, via a cooling system below the cells—Audi says this is so any fluids drain down and not into contact with the cells in the event of a crash. In the e-tron, these are pouch cells (probably from LG Chem). The pack has been designed to accept prismatic cells as well, which gives Audi some freedom when it comes to cell suppliers for future EVs that share this current architecture. (The next model in line is the e-tron Sportback, then the e-tron GT in 2021.) Audi says the e-tron's regenerative braking is best in class, and together with the aforementioned heat pump, the car maker seems to be taking real-world range issues seriously.

Jonathan Gitlin

Audi

Audi

Audi

Audi

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Much about the e-tron has been designed for it to integrate into owners' lives as effortlessly as possible. Audi has partnered with Amazon to make the installation of the home charging kit as simple and trustworthy as possible. As penance for the diesel emissions scandal, parent VW Group is building out a country-wide network of 500 DC fast-charging stations that will feed the e-tron's battery at 150kW, taking it from empty to eighty (percent) in about 30 minutes. It's not quite the same as Tesla's Supercharger network, but you've got to start somewhere.

The e-tron isn't particularly cheap, starting at $74,800. But if you include the $7,500 federal tax credit, the vehicle starts getting competitive with the other big five-seat Audi SUV, the Q8. The batteries and motors come with double the normal warranty—in this case, 100,000 miles or eight years. And standard equipment in the base Premium Plus models is relatively generous for an automaker like Audi; spending the extra $6,000 on the Prestige trim mainly gets you fancier front seats clad in fancier leather, as well as adaptive cruise control and driver assists.

The immediate response to e-tron on Monday night was mixed. Neither the drones nor the light show did much to pump up cynical (or jet-lagged) journalists, but dealers that I spoke to seemed excited about adding an electric SUV into the mix. My take is that the e-tron is sufficiently different from the other luxury electric SUVs on the market that it ought to appeal to a different type of customer, one who might otherwise have stuck with a conventionally powered SUV. At least I hope so, if the goal is getting more of us away from internal combustion.