What were the days when Paul Frere was sent up a hill covered in ice and snow in a quattro prototype and, when he was honestly enthusiastic, told that he would be offered the same model with winter tyres at the next test. We're not necessarily fans of all-wheel drive, but that does put the proverbial grin on your face.

And today? The world premiere turns into a yawn show. Instead of showing the new e-tron GT, four freshly motivated figures, the men with open shirts, appear one after the other and, moderated by the woman on the board of directors, just throw the keywords at each other. It's always about the future, the departure towards it and how the whole thing is lived within the brand. The word 'future' alone occurs 13 times in the first 13 minutes, despite being interrupted by a song.

You can't shake the impression that the speeches are rehearsed and that certain key words are predefined or play a particularly important role. There is hardly any other way, because we learn nothing about the car during this time. However, no superlative stays where it belongs. Even the boss uses his thirty-year career in the automotive sector to emphasise the presentation of this car.

One thinks that Corona could cut off some unnecessary things in our society earlier than they would take care of themselves, which also happens in part, but forgets that at the same time new things are born that no one needs. One suspects that such a development will in turn bring forward people of action who will then clean up the mess, but at the same time will no longer listen to anyone.

What is the point? The e-tron GT is not, as all the talk might suggest, Audi's first all-electric vehicle. This is the e-tron (without GT), delivered as an SUV since the beginning of 2019. Here, too, the battery is already flat in the underbody. Only externally does it resemble the model with combustion engine, whereas the GT has a more independent design.

The battery capacity is the same, but the power of the basic GT is higher than that of the e-tron, not the torque. At least Audi is fair enough to add the power of the motors in relation to the revs, i.e. only partially and not the maximum power to be assigned to different revs. Nevertheless, the boost power for 2.5 seconds (see above) makes it more confusing.

These figures and those of the net battery capacity make a price comparison with the Porsche Taycan difficult despite basically the same technology including now also the 800V charging technology. You can really only compare the Audi e-tron GT RS with the Taycan Turbo (what a name!) and come up with a difference of about 20,000 euros. There is no matching Taycan to the e-tron GT (without RS) because then the battery capacity does not match.

All this and the design makes the new Audi more lovable, but by no means as unique as it was made out to be at the premiere. Quite apart from the fact that once again a range (and presumably charging performance) of a scale that cannot be reproduced in practice is promised, but if you were to point this out to those responsible, they would say that they can't help but do the same to the competition.