Audi excels with ultra-refined SUV
Knowing how fast technology moves is the only thing that might stop you from buying the Audi e-tron, writes Richard Bosselman.
The internet accesses so much: the past, the present, future trends . . . Imagine having it in the birth year of the car. Putting yourself back into that time, ask this in consideration of the 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Would you have been so keen on a three-wheel contraption wholly open to the elements, steered by a tiller and running a one-litre motor that tapped out at 16kmh if you had an inkling that, within a relative few years, improvements of all kinds – from the steering wheel and pneumatic tyres to fully enclosed bodies – were coming?
I would be thinking ‘‘nice idea, Karl, but I might just wait a bit’’.
When comparing with fossilfuelled choices, electric cars still suffer from real or perceived negatives – it’s almost as if the inevitability of a world in which electricity supplants petrol and diesel isn’t being taken seriously.
Being Audi’s first series production electric car places e-tron in a Patent-Motorwagen moment. Doubtless brand fans with the wherewithal to dabble will still think hard about whether this is the best time to take the plunge.
Experiencing a 55 quattro made many perceived impositions inconsequential. The starting point for VW Group’s plan to introduce, across its 12 brands, 70 full electric cars globally by 2028, accounting for 22 million vehicles, is an impressive first tilt.
Ergonomics, refinement, ambience. If measured on those, it is the best Audi sold here. That it also nails the fundamental practicalities of its type is also impressive. EVs that can tow are rare and it also breaks ground in opportuning realistic soft offroading.
The e-tron is an SUV foremost because the whole world goes crazy on these, but it also has to be high-riding and large to allow adequate space for the 2.1-metre battery pack under the cabin floor, plus the two electric motors – one for the front wheelset, the other for the rear, to fulfil quattro ambition – and associated components.
The 432-cell 400-volt batteries add 700 kilograms, taking the car’s overall weight to around 2.5-tonnes – 300kg more than Jaguar’s I-Pace and is 150kg up on a Tesla Model X 75D. Kickoff is surprisingly decent, but with much to haul, it understandably has a regal bearing and is less deft in cornering than the Jaguar.
Yet laid-back cruising is in keeping with the Audi’s lounging aura and is no great imposition to swift, silent progress. Having so much weight down low means it feels pinned down and generally unsettled by bumps.
Does a 95kWh output and a cited optimal range of 417km compute? In clocking almost 400km, I recharged on three occasions, always when there was at least 90km driving range availing, twice to achieve 80 per cent replenishment, the third time pushing out, but not quite reaching, for 100 per cent. On the last occasion, the car indicated it had 320km range; in the earlier ‘‘fills’’ it achieved 230km and 280km.
Range anxiety came into it only once, and even then it was more perceived than proven. I was facing a last-minute round trip that was around 200km but through winding, steep country – conditions that would push the ‘‘thirst’’ hard.
Would the car do it? In theory, yes, but in the end it was the potential that I might have to replenish on a charger coming back when time really didn’t allow for it that put me off. So, instead, we took a Subaru Levorg also on test. If it’s any consolation, Audi, my passengers hated the jolting ride.
Every replenishment reminded that the public charging infrastructure will soon struggle to meet the needs of cars such as this. I can understand why Audi is pushing its home wall boxes so hard.
I chose to replenish purely by 50kWh DC, but with just one opportunity in my vicinity, it was always a gamble as to whether it would be available. Remarkably, two out of three occasions it was, but with stops accounting for at least 40 minutes, even if the longest cost only $12, it’s a lot of faffing about. The sooner the network steps up to the 150kWh hit this car can cope with, the better.
Sitting out the process lent time to mull about the charging port. Beautifully engineered, yes, yet location between the front wheel arch and door on the right side forces very close nose-in parking else the chunky tethered cable won’t reach.
As waiting rooms go, the e-tron is a good spot. Admittedly, this car was as five star as it could be, being an Advanced loaded with every conceivable option, to represent a $175,700 hit, but even the base is rather swank.
Those ‘‘virtual exterior mirrors’’ – pod-mounted cameras that display on compact OLED screens on each door inner – are a fascination. The quality of the image is brilliant, but after 40 years’ driving with a mirror, coming to terms with where to look and the depth of field was challenging.
It’s the only aspect of the car that I would have preferred to be old-school. Otherwise, the e-tron is as much an opus for Audi as you’d expect it to be.
For sure, e-tron is exposed by the math that shows EVs still don’t easily convince (some say a full electric has to clock 128,000km before its environmental benefits prove cleaner than a petrol) let alone, in some respects, by comparison with a Q7 or Q8. And the pace of progress is increasing so rapidly it’s probable even a car this advanced might be outmoded by the decade’s end, not least if transition to solid state batteries effects.
Yet, in the here and now, the e-tron is good enough to rattle the smart folk in Freemont, California.