Audi Q7 e-tron plug-in hybrid Petrol & Diesel versions planned – and they’ll be the most expensive Q7

The Audi Q7 e-tron plug-in hybrid – revealed at Geneva – will be offered with either a diesel or petrol engine and be the most expensive Q7 on offer when they arrive in 2016.

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The Audi Q7 e-tron was revealed this week at the Geneva Motor Show as a plug-in hybrid Q7 with a 3.0 litre V6 diesel and an electric motor, promising BIK-busting Co2 levels of just 50g/km and barking mad official economy of 166.2mpg.

Of course, the truth is that the economy and emissions figures are a fantasy, a fantasy made ‘official’ by the silly way fuel economy testing is done. In truth, you’ll probably be doing well if you manage anywhere close to 50 mpg in normal use (which means your emissions are actually around 150g/km).

But buyers are seduced my the huge claims for economy and seem willing to pay a lot more upfront for a car that promises much lower fuel bills (and tax bills for a company car driver). A private buyer will never see their money back for the extra upfront spend, but company car drivers – because car taxation is stupidly based on ‘official’ CO2 emissions – are willing to jump in despite the mad price tags.

And that daft price tag is likely to be substantial, as Audi see the Q7 e-tron as a car that will sit at the very top of the Q7 range, a range that – with the current Q7 – tops out at £65,000, so you can probably expect the new Q7 e-tron to cost more than £70k when it arrives in 2016.

But Audi aren’t just jumping in to the high-price, poor return market with a diesel plug-in hybrid for the UK and Europe, they’re also delivering a petrol-engined version for the US and China with a 2.0 litre turbo petrol engine mated to an electric motor and promising similarly barking mad economy figures.

Still, if there’s a market for cars like this, car makers are going to deliver. But economically they make almost no sense – and the only sense they do make is because the market is skewed by CO2 emissions taxation.

That itself is stupid – they should be based on stuff like NOx and particulates – but when the ‘official’ emissions are so clearly nothing like the actual, real world emissions, it’s all a nonsense.