If you ever need to distract a pair of gearheads for an hour, tell them that torque is a more efficient measurement of badass than horsepower - or tell them the opposite.  Either way, you'll start an argument that will hold their attention for as long as you need.

Ultimately, of course, it's a pointless diversion.  There is a relationship between horsepower and torque, you don't get one without the other, and the measurement of one in any given car usually roughly approximates the measurement of the other.  The BMW M5, for instance, puts out 556 horsepower, and 551 lb.-ft of torque.  The Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1, 620 horsepower and about 600 lb.-ft of torque.  And they both bring badass by the bucketful.

If your gearhead friends figure this out, though, you can always point them to the Audi e-Tron to buy yourself more time.

Autoblog reports, "The new e-Tron packs four electric motors and a lithium-ion battery pack with a fairly tame-sounding 313 hp but an insane 3,319 lb-ft of torque."  That's more than ten times the torque of a V8 powered Audi R8. Thanks to the magic of electric motors, the e-Tron runs from zero to sixty in about four-and-a-half seconds, "but rolling acceleration from 37-75 mph takes just 4.1 seconds thanks to the e-Tron's massive amount of twist."

And, of course, the car's name immediately calls to mind a corny 1980's sci-fi movie.  We're not sure what that does to the badass factor.   But we are sure it's going to cause some arguments among the sort of people who felt their faces get hot reading the first few paragraphs of this article.

It's a sharp-looking car.  Jalopnik describes it as "a profile that's pure R8 but with a completely different front grille, LED headlights, wheels and rear end."  Those wheels are among the most distinctive features, with rims made of intricately patterned wire. 

Kicking Tires reports, "The cabin is as high-tech as you'd expect from an electric concept...High-tech goodies that might appear in some form on future products include a scroll-pad style Multi-Media Interface controller and LED headlights that adjust their height and width in response to rain, fog and oncoming headlights."

The e-Tron, according to Car and Driver, is just a concept at this point - and unlikely to ever see production.  "The E-Tron is Audi's way of announcing it will be competitive in the electric-car arena, but that it will do things its own way."  With a separate motor driving each wheel, it offers a unique take on all-wheel-drive. Each engine's thrust can be varied independently depending on available traction.   Thanks to extensive use of lightweight materials, it weighs in at just 3,500 pounds - a fairly low figure for a supercar, considering that nearly a third of the weight is in the battery alone.

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