The Audi Q6 E-Tron will probably be revealed in 2022, so when these spy shots landed in my inbox this morning, I thought for sure that’s what I was looking at. However, sources are new telling us that this is a Chinese-market special, and it should even be a seven-seater.

The crossover that you see in these spy shots is an E-Tron, and it will likely go by the Q5 E-Tron moniker. We’ll never see it in the United States and Europe will probably never see it either. It’s designed to slot between the recently launched Q4 E-Tron and the full-size Audi E-Tron. It will be built in China by Chinese automaker SAIC.

The Q5 E-Tron name was actually confirmed a while back by photos Audi supplied to the Chinese trademark agency and later published by Autohome. Beyond this Audi also announced that the Q5 E-Tron was coming back in April during Auto Shanghai 2021 when Audi showcased a somewhat lazy concept version of the car.

These spy shots, however, were actually snapped close to Audi’s headquarters in Germany. It will ride on Volkswagen’s MEB platform and is, basically, Audi’s version of the ID.6 X – yet another car that was designed specifically for the Chinese market. With that car measuring around 192-inches long, the Q5 E-Tron should come in at about the same.

With that in mind, we can also speculate a bit on powertrain and performance. Since it’s basically a rebadged ID.6 X, it will likely be offered with the same powertrains. So, there will be two different battery sizes to pick from and three different powertrain ratings. The battery options will be split between a 58-kWh unit and a 77-kWh unit. Power output will range from 177 to 302 horsepower, with the cream of the crop being able to snap to 62 mph in 6.6 seconds. Top speed, however, will be rather mundane at just 100 mph.