TECHNICAL LAYOUT
brand on for so long. There is a sleeker Sportback bodystyle on offer for Q4 buyers primarily concerned with how their cars look, but that shouldn’t be expected to address many of the EV’S aforementioned design idiosyncrasies.
INTERIOR
Like one or two of the other midmarket, clean-sheet EVS with which it competes, the Q4 E-tron reveals itself to be a really roomy car when you start opening its doors and boot. For cabin space, it could even rival the most practical mid-sized, five-seat SUVS in the class such as the Honda CR-V. Its hip point is convenient and its roof line high, making for abundant head room and leg room in the front row, and there is plenty of space in row two for adults to be comfortable in.
The boot is more shallow than some SUV regulars might be used to as a result of what is packaged below. It still offers a generous 520 litres of carrying capacity below the load cover, though, as well as a folding, removable boot board that delivers a flat loading area when the seats are folded, and further storage space underneath.
When seated at the wheel, you will find yourself in a very comfortable, adjustable and well-supported driving position, but the dimensions of the car around you do feel a little curious. The dashboard is bulky and imposing, stretching towards you from the distant base of a steeply raked windscreen, and seeming so large and f lat that it could almost double as a passenger-side dining table. Being equally steeply raked and bordered by large door mirrors, the A-pillars create large threequarter blindspots on either side of the screen itself, and can be hard to see around at roundabouts and junctions. The bonnet, meanwhile, is short and concave, dropping away to make it quite hard to judge the length of the car’s nose when parking and manoeuvring.
In its habitual style, Audi has packed plenty of technology into the Q4’s cabin and has been fairly bold with the geometric, tiered appearance of the asymmetrical dashboard. This is a smart-looking, pleasant interior in broad terms, but its material quality levels and fit and finish might not quite meet your expectations of a £45,000 premium family car.
Both hard and soft-touch materials feature, but the former look and feel surprisingly rough and plain. One or two sharply edged pieces of trim, and fitting gaps between mouldings, of the sort that we’re not used to finding in an Audi, also appear in the car.
PERFORMANCE
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In mid-range form, the Q4 E-tron presents quite an ordinary driving experience. Riding on the coat-tails of other electric cars that had to risk more to break through, it feels like a second-era EV with a bit less to prove.
Audi’s claim for 0-62mph acceleration of 8.5sec is slightly conservative. We timed it to 60mph at a two-way-average 8.1sec, with 30-70mph taking 7.8sec. The identically powerful Kia e-niro
❝ The Audi always feels measured and mature to drive ❞
that we tested in 2019 was almost a second quicker to 60mph, and more so from 30-70mph, while the Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus that we timed in the same year was a good deal quicker again.
This Audi would seem to be the kind of EV whose driving experience is intended not to stand out but blend in, then; not to surprise but to oblige and reassure. Mostly, it succeeds at that. And even if it isn’t quite as quick as rivals, it still performs and responds well compared with conventionally powered SUVS, and is as easy and undemanding to operate in most respects as you could really want a family car to be.
The Q4 E-tron has Audi’s usual selection of driving modes, ranging from Comfort to Dynamic but including an additional Range setting that limits motor output and top speed, and reduces power consumption from the car’s peripheral systems, to maximise battery range. Whichever mode you use, it has a more gentle initial throttle response than some EVS, but balances drivability with urgency cleverly as you move off up to urban speeds and beyond. The Audi always feels measured and mature to drive but can pick up strongly up to the national speed limit when required.
Energy regeneration can either be managed automatically by the Efficiency Assist regeneration setting using information from the forward sensors and navigation system, or be manually controlled using the car’s shift paddles. In the automatic setting, deceleration is blended in quite gradually as you approach a junction. It can surprise at first, but is handled slightly better overall than by certain other EVS. Even so, most testers preferred driving with the added confidence of manual control over regen, and also enjoyed allowing the Q4 to coast when possible and to conserve its momentum naturally, boosting its operating efficiency.
The car’s brake pedal progression is one notable disappointment. It blends friction and regenerative braking a little clumsily, and can feel soft and spongy at one moment and grabby the next. When the roads are quiet, you can learn to make little use of the car’s brakes, of course; but in heavy traffic, the pedal’s paucity of definition and inconsistency of feel can be frustrating.
HANDLING AND STABILITY
Audi offers three mechanical specifications for the Q4 E-tron’s suspension, which is always made up primarily of fixed-height steel coil springs. Entry-level Sport cars get a full passive Comfort set-up, with a lower, stiffer configuration featuring on mid-trim examples, while toprung Vorsprung versions gain an adaptively damped arrangement. Our test car had the aforementioned adaptively damped configuration fitted as an option, however.
It also had the broadly capable, ever-secure, ever-controlled, slightly aloof, medium-firm-riding and Teutonically flavoured handling character we’ve come to expect of a modern Audi. The application of a rear-drive chassis evidently hasn’t changed Ingolstadt’s approach to the dynamic tuning of a mid-market family car, nor its expectations of the tastes of its customers – and so those who don’t know, or care, which axle does the driving in this car may very well never find out.
Of more importance to Audi, clearly, was that the Q4 be easy to drive; stable, moderate and measured in its responses; and always eminently, intuitively controllable – which, by and large, it is. It is guided through medium-paced steering with quite gentle initial response but gathering pace off-centre. The weight can be adjusted with the car’s drive
modes – but there is never that much of it, nor much perceptible feedback.
Body control is quite good for a mid-sized SUV, and grip levels are moderately high and tolerant of faster driving. Although the ride is firmer than some might expect, it’s not at all aggressively damped, while the Q4 can also become fairly compliant at low speeds and on uneven roads when you select Comfort mode.
In a two-tonne, high-riding car, some lateral body movement comes with the territory, of course. Since you’re sitting that little bit higher than most in this one, and thanks to that battery positioning also further away from the car’s roll axis than you might be, you do feel every gentle bit of pitch and head toss in the Q4, and you’re aware of every little move it makes. It’s to Audi’s credit that the car controls and conducts itself so competently and consistently, though – albeit without much to get enthusiastic about.
COMFORT AND ISOLATION
The Q4’s maturity of dynamic character should make it a good fit for families that want calming refinement and isolation from an electric car. Our noise meter confirmed that the test car’s cabin was fully two decibels quieter than that of a Tesla Model 3 at both 30mph and 50mph, and three decibels quieter at 70mph. A Jaguar I-pace is no more hushed, and the £88,000 E-tron S we tested only a few weeks ago is noisier at certain speeds. The driver’s seat had fairly firm foam padding but offered lots of potential for extension and adjustment of the cushion, and kept most testers comfy. The optional 20in alloy wheels and 45/50-profile tyres were quiet over most surfaces, if a little given to roar over rougher ones. Besides those surfaces, the only thing likely to disturb the calm of the Q4’s cabin are the movements of its own front axle, which can suddenly seem close to your feet when it occasionally clunks over bigger, sharper intrusions taken with a little load in the suspension. These incidences are rare, granted, but they’re one more way in which the Q4 can feel slightly un-audi-like at times.
BUYING AND OWNING
The mid-range Q4 E-tron’s 77kwh battery capacity compares favourably with what’s on offer in the longestrange versions of the Tesla Model 3, Polestar 2 and Mercedes-benz EQA. That fact, combined with creditable on-test running efficiency and good rapid-charging provision, should put the Audi in a strong position for those primarily concerned with the practical limitations of EV ownership. Our test car returned 3.0mpkwh at a steady 70mph motorway cruise, suggesting owners will be able to routinely put at least 220 miles between charges over longer distances. Its efficiency increased to 3.9mpkwh at 50mph, at which speed it would become nearly a 300-mile proposition. Among its nearest rivals, only the longest-range Tesla Model 3 and Ford Mustang Mach-e do better for operating range, although even the latter can’t match the Q4’s peak rapid charging capacity of 125kw.
The Q4 E-tron’s starting price just above £40,000 is for a car with only just over 50kwh of battery capacity, of course, and that will only charge at a peak 100kw. A mid-range Q4 E-tron with a decent optional equipment level is likely to run very close to £50,000. Objectively, that does seem a lot for a car that, in some areas, struggles to distinguish itself as a premium product, and it won’t make comparisons with like-for-like versions of the VW ID 4 and Skoda Enyaq iv any more comfortable for Audi.
Like the Volkswagen ID 4 and Skoda Enyaq, the Q4 E-tron uses the VW Group’s Ev-specialist MEB platform. Most examples will have a rear-mounted electric motor and rear-wheel drive, but upper-level versions get an additional, front motor for all-wheel drive. Suspension is all-independent, by steel coils. Weight on the scales was distributed 48:52 front to rear.