The future, Audi style
By blending what appears to be a conventional but by no means common or garden hatchback with the top technology of our time, Audi proves that not only can it be easy being green but enormous fun to boot, writes Dave Moore.
IT LOOKS like any other A3 and it goes with the alacrity of the more sporting versions of the Audi five-door, in other words, plenty briskly. But the Audi A3 E-tron’s real party trick is that if you properly organise your use and ownership of the car, it might not need a single drop of fossil fuel for weeks on end.
Audi says, despite the success of the Tesla and Leaf, that the pure electric car isn’t really quite there yet, and its technicians and engineers say that if it was, then they would have been among the first to consider them. Instead, Audi has recognised that plug-in hybrids with a range capable of meting out meaningful electric commuting distances and town-and-around driving along with good outside-the-city-limits performance are the areas they’d like to explore.
The company’s first cab off the rank to use this tech is the A3 E-tron, Audi’s already desirable and well-sorted five-door hatch, which is the precursor car for similar plug-in tech destined to go into the upcoming Q7 SUV, the just-released new A4 range and the A6.
So you could say the A3 E-tron represents the future as Audi sees it.
You can have a lot of fun getting to know the various settings available for the A3 E-tron which can be made to go like heck with all the electric and fossil fuel power used together, or to run entirely on electricity, with points in between mixing battery cell charging with petrol-powered cruising for short or long distances. A reassuring part of the how-to chart allows you to pick a setting that merely allows the powertrain to charge the cells to the level you realistically need. Thus there’s neither ‘‘range-anxiety’’ nor any likelihood of running out of fuel or charge if you manage things well enough. The E-tron will not allow you to embarrass yourself in such a way.
I enjoyed charging the batteries to maximum when cruising, saving the electric charge for wafting silently among the only greener travellers: walkers and cyclists, though you still get the same hand-signals from such people as if you were actually using fossil fuel. It’s the price you pay for being so darn quiet and effectively creeping up on them.
About the only down-side to the A3 E-tron is that all the gubbins associated with the electric part of the equation means that the car weighs about 380kg more than the 1.4 TSi model with 150 kilos of that being the battery pack. And although the company has tried to spread the weight so that it’s as low-mounted as possible, you’re always aware that the equivalent of two well-fed full-sized adults is travelling with you.
Understeer is much more obvious than that of the 1.4-litre TSi car, and the extra weight really does need every one of the combined petrol/electric kilowatts on tap when getting off the line briskly. Having said that, our posted mid seven-second zero to 100kmh time is impressive.
Being based on the A3, the E-tron version inherits all the other positive elements of Audi ownership. This includes the model’s simple, driver-friendly and irrefutably high-quality user environment.
It’s still the best in class and even though the car hasn’t yet inherited the between-the-dials sat-nav display, introduced with the TT and about to arrive in the A4, the fold-away screen leaves the dash completely uncluttered when it’s not in use.
Inside, the differences between an E-tron A3 and a conventional one are, a power meter instead of a rev counter and an array of power distribution graphs (if you want them) while load space is a little less expansive thanks to the need for battery cells, and the need to stow a zip-up bag, that’s a little smaller than a cabin bag, containing the cable and plug for stationary charging.
As with all A3s, the driving position is exemplary and rear space much improved over the
previous model, which of course did not offer an E-tron option. So what’s it like to live with? Much as I love the smugly pleasant feeling of conducting the A3 E-tron about, apart from subtle badges, there’s nothing to hint to other road-users as to what you’re grinning about, unlike the strangely-shaped and far less talented non plug-in hybrids. You’d best have a charger at or near work as well as your homebased one in order to take full advantage of the A3 E-tron’s maximum electricity-only range, when up to 120kmh is available in non fossil-fuelled silence with a touring range of about 40km.
If you live any farther out of town than that, then the heavily advertised 1.6L/100km figure is something you’ll never achieve, however, a few days of petrol-free commuting and some 100km runs up the coast for the benefit of the dog, saw ‘‘my’’ E-tron recording between 2.7 and 3.9L/100km with the larger figure including big hold-ups during the trip.
Plugging the A3 E-tron in is easy, with the plug exposed by sliding the four-hoop grille badge sideways, the only compromise for my ownership of the car would be having to reverse into the garage to line up the mains plug. It’s a pity the cable can’t be stowed behind the grille instead of cluttering up the load area, but it would be no deal-breaker.
Neither would the price. This most sophisticated of all A3s at $75,000 is $8000 cheaper than the S3 using the same body style, and while the latter is much quicker, there’s a lot of fun to be had with the E-tron, working the car so it uses as little fuel as possible. There’s also that ethereal refinement when commuting in electricity-only mode.
If we lived in a more emissionsaware market, the A3 E-tron would be a much easier purchase to justify. In the UK for instance, its emissions levels are so low that the car pays no annual road tax, can avoid the $25-a-day London access charge and enjoys a fourfigure purchase subsidy.
In New Zealand, where there is no real encouragement to even think about low-emissions vehicles, the A3 E-tron gets no help at all, and that includes meaningful infrastructure for at work or city car park charging.
If ever a car deserves such incentives, it’s Audi’s E-tron, the least compromised of all plug-in hybrids.