Audi e-tron GT

REPORT 4

£106,950 OTR/£107,080 as tested/£1,313pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Is Audi’s Taycan a better all-rounder than Porsche’s?

DRIVER

Ollie Marriage

FOR REASONS BEST KNOWN TO ITSELF, A RUBBER TRIM STRIP CAME unstuck the other day. It just fell down when I opened the rear door. It’s a small thing, it stuck half-heartedly back on, but it speaks to a wider issue with the e-tron GT at the moment – I’m not convinced the behind the scenes quality is where it should be.

Superficially all is well. The materials are great, the design is clean and well executed, it feels expensive inside, right where it should be for a luxury electric car costing this much. As an object, I have no issues. But...

The speaker grille over the tweeter on the driver’s door buzzes. If I put my elbow against it for a second and release it, that cures it for a couple of minutes. Then it starts again. The other night the usually impeccably behaved matrix LED lights decided to blind cars coming the other way. The gearbox – the e-tron GT has a two-speeder on the rear axle – has recently started kicking occasionally during shifts, so I find myself bracing for it. But of course when I do, it shifts seamlessly. The other day it refused to give me full power after I’d startled it at 25mph while trying to make the gearbox clonk. That cured itself with the usual turn-off-and-on-again routine.

I use CarPlay most of the time, but that currently only works over a wired connection – it should be wireless over Bluetooth as well. Because I use CarPlay it took me a while to realise the built-in satnav was only showing regular maps, not the satellite imagery it was supposed to. And I’ve still not got it to talk to the myAudi app on my phone.

The long and the short of it is it probably needs a full digital reboot. So next week it’s off back to have a diagnostic lead plugged in and hopefully it’ll come back and chat happily with my phone. And if the trim strip still falls off, I can fix it with some double-sided sticky tape.