Mikołaj "Miko" Marczyk, the reigning European Rally Champion, drove an Audi A6 Sportback e-tron performance 1,338 kilometres across Poland without plugging in — a Guinness World Record for the longest journey by an electric car on a single charge. Audi published the result on 25 September 2026. The drive itself had finished nearly two weeks earlier.
The drive
Marczyk set off at 01:55 on 11 September and stopped more than 45 hours later. The route followed the Vistula from south to north — Kraków, Sandomierz, Warsaw, Toruń, Grudziądz, then Hel on the Baltic coast — and came back down the same roads, ending between Toruń and Ciechocinek.
These were public roads in ordinary traffic, some of it at rush hour, at an average ambient temperature of 15°C. That distinguishes the attempt from records set on closed circuits, and it is the part Audi is entitled to make something of. The previous mark, 1,205 km set by a Lucid Air Grand Touring in July 2025, now stands 133 km short.
What 7.09 kWh/100 km actually means
The recorded average consumption was 7.09 kWh per 100 km. Multiply that by 1,338 km and the result is 94.9 kWh — exactly the usable capacity of the A6 Sportback e-tron performance's 100 kWh pack. The car arrived empty, and the numbers reconcile.
They are also not numbers any driver will meet. Covering 1,338 km in 45 hours is an average of under 30 km/h. Consumption that low is a product of speed that low, and no motorway journey resembles it.
| Figure | |
|---|---|
| Distance | 1,338 km |
| Usable battery | 94.9 kWh (100 kWh gross) |
| Average consumption | 7.09 kWh/100 km |
| Elapsed time | over 45 hours |
| Implied average speed | under 30 km/h |
| WLTP range | up to 756 km, depending on wheels |
The record is roughly 1.8 times the car's own WLTP rating, reached by driving in a way the WLTP cycle does not model.
Where this sits next to a Tesla
The comparison worth having is not against a hypermiling run but against a standardised one. In Edmunds' mixed-driving test this year, an A6 Sportback e-tron covered 631 km and the entry Model 3 RWD covered 632 km — from a battery roughly 40% smaller. The Model 3 consumed about 13.5 kWh/100 km and became the most efficient production EV Edmunds had then tested.
Both things are true at once: Audi's platform is efficient enough to hold a world record, and on a repeatable loop it needs a far bigger pack to match a Model 3's distance.
What European buyers should take from it
A hypermiling record measures the floor of a drivetrain's consumption — the losses that remain when speed stops hiding them. A figure of 7.09 kWh/100 km says the A6 e-tron's motors, inverter and thermal system are genuinely good, and that the 800-volt platform underneath the car is not carrying dead weight.
What it does not do is move the number on the window sticker. European buyers should read it as evidence about the hardware, not as a range claim — and note that Audi chose to announce it two weeks after the fact, in the same week the brand's parent group was making rather different headlines about electric demand.