@akafrans, for what it's worth, here is some feedback on your issues:

• There are no warnings if you accidentally forget to close the charging port. I've driven around several times and suddenly realised that I forgot the damn port. Agreed, I have also discovered this. Fortunately it wasn't raining.
• The charging unit is big and bulky, especially if you put it in and out of your car several times a day. Agreed, but I don't carry it around with me. It certainly is "robust".
• There's no obvious way to mount or hang the charging unit, or am I missing something? Audi do produce a "Charging dock" as an optional accessory. I'm not sure how much it costs but you could check the price with your local Audi parts warehouse. (see Owners manual page 127)
• I find the "touch" locking feature to be a bit laggy, but it always works after a couple of tries. I haven't had any problem with this, I find it very sensitive. Maybe the battery in your key might be on the way out?
• The two-zoned AC doesn't seem to regulate both sides when changing the temperature. You need to synchronise the temperature of the passenger side to that of the driver side by pressing the AUTO button for 2 seconds.

 

I agree that the charging unit is becoming the most annoying thing.
It seems it was designed to be a part of the fixed wall unit and not intended to be mobile. Well, in my use it's very much mobile. I had to buy a waterproof bag for it for charging at work.
I thought about buying a more reasonable sized charger, but they cost a lot. It would take several years of free charging at work just to get even.

Touch locking is a bit unsensitive. I had an Auris hybrid before and in that it worked perfectly.

B&O system has the infamous crackling issue. It starts doing it at 25+ volume level with certain kind of music. Apparently it has problems with MP3's encoded at 44.1kHz (pretty much all of them). Known issue, no solution.

Apparently e-tron doesn't upkeep the battery temperature in cold weather, even when it's plugged in. I know some cars, like Tesla do this. Always-warm battery would mean much better range.

I wish there was an option to prevent ICE startup, no matter how hard you press the throttle. Of course it must force start when battery is nearly empty.

Oh, and I don't especially like DSG and it's occasional jerkiness Still, it's probably the only automatic that actually lowers CO2 compared to manual.

 

Something I've had some issues with:
- There are no warnings if you accidentally forget to close the charging port. I've driven around several times and suddenly realised that I forgot the damn port.
- The charging unit is big and bulky, especially if you put it in and out of your car several times a day.
- There's no obvious way to mount or hang the charging unit, or am I missing something?
- I find the "touch" locking feature to be a bit laggy, but it always works after a couple of tries.
- The two-zoned AC doesn't seem to regulate both sides when changing the temperature.

I borrowed one for a weekend and found;

Yes the charging unit is overly bulky - its like audi want to remind you you've paid a lot of money so must give you something big to prove it. The VW one for the GTE is tiny in comparison.

I also found the touch locking very laggy and hated it. My wife has comfort access on her Fiesta ST and it was FAR better than the audi one. I'd delete it from the spec if I was ordering one.

My only other complaint of the e-tron was the lack of progressive steering as it felt a bit boat-like after driving an S3 (with progressive steering) and a Fiesta ST (short/quick rack) daily. But then again, it's not supposed to be any form of sports car.

 

I just want to clarify, the touch UNlocking works great, it's just the "swipe" lock that is a bit laggy for me.

 

Yes - it was the locking on the loaner I had which was a right pain. Unlock was fine.

It didn't have folding mirrors either so knowing exactly when the locking had worked was a case of looking / listening for the indicator flash etc

 

And when the Energy Flow display is up, there's no clock anywhere. There is one in the mmi display, but during ev mode that's usually tucked away.

 

We've had ours just under a week now and we're happy with it. No problems with the locking. We had a dedicated charging unit installed on the front of the house, so we haven't had to use the bulky charging cables, although I am sure they will come in handy when we go further afield. Unsurprising the EV-only range is not quite as far as advertised, but it is enough for our daily urban use, and when the car is in hybrid mode it has been extremely efficient. It will be interesting to see if the electric-only range improves slightly once the weather is slightly warmer.
Not sure if it is worth getting a sim card to get full /easy access to functionality with the Audi MMI system - some thing seem like gimmicks (not sure I've ever felt the urge to tweet whilst driving!) but being able to control settings and program the map from a computer could be handy. Anyone else tried getting a sim?
One v v minor issue is that we paid for the luggage package option - which basically provides a few nets - but we didn't get the 'net in the side compartment' of the boot that was advertised as part of this package, presumably because there's no spare room to do this in the side panels of the boot. It's a tiny issue but annoying as that is how it was described in the e-tron specific brochure.

 

We've had ours just under a week now and we're happy with it. No problems with the locking. We had a dedicated charging unit installed on the front of the house, so we haven't had to use the bulky charging cables, although I am sure they will come in handy when we go further afield. Unsurprising the EV-only range is not quite as far as advertised, but it is enough for our daily urban use, and when the car is in hybrid mode it has been extremely efficient. It will be interesting to see if the electric-only range improves slightly once the weather is slightly warmer.
Not sure if it is worth getting a sim card to get full /easy access to functionality with the Audi MMI system - some thing seem like gimmicks (not sure I've ever felt the urge to tweet whilst driving!) but being able to control settings and program the map from a computer could be handy. Anyone else tried getting a sim?
One v v minor issue is that we paid for the luggage package option - which basically provides a few nets - but we didn't get the 'net in the side compartment' of the boot that was advertised as part of this package, presumably because there's no spare room to do this in the side panels of the boot. It's a tiny issue but annoying as that is how it was described in the e-tron specific brochure.

Seriously the net for the side is tiny - big enough to stop a jar of marmalade from rolling around the boot but not much more. I wouldn't worry about it

 

I've got the MMI system in my S3 with the sim card etc, it's well worth it.

I use a Three PAYG sim and have only ever put the initial £10 on it!

You get realtime traffic for the nav (FAR better than the rubbish TMC traffic), online search from the mmi (so you can search for "mcdonalds" or "argos" etc and it just finds them for you from Google. I also use it for finding the cheapest local petrol.

Of course you can also use google maps overlay on the map, tweet and all the other useless things but the former items are really worth having IMHO.

 

I think with E-Tron you get a SIM provided - I thought it was a 6-month trial but am not sure. My dealer said it would be sent to me in the post but because I'm impatient I bought a PAYG data sim to use while I'm waiting.

Still playing with the features but agree that it is worth having - especially traffic guidance which has already proved useful to me.

One thing I'm not yet sure of is whether the WiFi hotspot uses the sim? The config is via the Telephone setup which is a bit confusing.

 

E-tron can have 2 sims. One is specific to e-tron for the remote control etc, and other for the MMI.

 

my understanding is that the e-tron has two sims - one inbuilt that you can't see for the telematics/audi etron app, and the other for the data services for the MMI.

It comes with the former but haven't heard of anyone getting a data sim for the MMI included even as a trial (in the US they get a 3yr sim FOC!).

wifi hotspot uses the data sim that the MMI uses for traffic etc.

 

I thought there must be a built in SIM as wondered how the app could talk to the car before I'd purchased a data sim.

Thanks for clarification on the WiFi.

 

Thanks, having full traffic info sounds useful, so our order for a SIM card is in the post!

 

Has anyone else noticed that when you plug in the charger, you get a heartbeat noise? Kinda cool

 

What is the e-tron like to drive on say a 70mile trip somewhere where you use hybrid mode all the way. Would the battery run flat? What is the car like to drive on the petrol engine once the battery is empty?

 

[/QUOTE]
Just done a trip of a similar mileage and yes the battery did run flat but never totally flat the ICE kept it topped up to about 2 bars on the instrument panel. The petrol engine is great, hardly noticed a difference when driving regardless of what mode the vehicle was in.

 

Just done a trip of a similar mileage and yes the battery did run flat but never totally flat the ICE kept it topped up to about 2 bars on the instrument panel. The petrol engine is great, hardly noticed a difference when driving regardless of what mode the vehicle was in.[/QUOTE]
How does the car perform when the battery is low in hybrid auto? Do you still get the rated acceleration? Concerned that after a long journey you'd end up with a heavy car with only the 1.4L ICE doing all the hard work.

 

What kind of MPG did it return on that kind of trip for you?

 

I just did a 118 mile trip x2 in Hybrid Auto. The battery did run out, but like Peter said, the ICE kept it on about reserve/two bars at the last 20 miles or so. I dont use MPG, but I got about 0,4 liters per 10km. There was a lot of incline though.

What I did see was that when the battery was almost drained, the car really uses every small decline to charge the battery. When the battery is somewhat full, the battery is only charged when driving steep downhills and off course during breaking.

 

To be honest itguy I haven't checked but I do know that I have had the vehicle two weeks tomorrow and I still have half a tank of fuel, bear in mind though I don't drive fast as I usually have two small children on board and even when they are not in the vehicle I now tend to drive as if they are.

 

I see this is old news, but in case anyone is tuning in:
I put 700 miles on a trip in my 2017 and didn't know where I'd be able to charge it so made the trip in battery hold mode and averaged 41.5 mpg (US gallons). About half of the trip was freeway at 75 mph and half secondary rounds in the 40 to 60 mph range with aggressive driving. The ICE is good. Acceleration was not an issue*. I am coming from a 2014 VW TDI Sportwagon that VW bought back from me. The etron is quicker then the VW as a hybrid and I'd say comparable to it with gas only. In aggressive cornering on the secondary road, maybe getting close to it's limits, it started to feel a little touchy. A little insecure. The VW never did that.

*Combined acceleration seems to be something of an issue. Flooring the accelerator and calling up the ICE and the electric motor produced a scary front end shuffle. Right, left, right. Back and forth to the lane edges as I accelerated to pass up a hill. After three lunges it settled down. I think the available torque overwhelmed the front end. The VW never did that, but the etron has more torque. I am now deliberately rolling it on to avoid the lunges back and forth.

But over the first 2700 miles including 75 back from the dealer when I picked it up (they had not charged the battery so all ICE), the 700 mile trip, one of about 150, and the rest local (10-50 mile round trips) it averaged 55.3 mpg (US). To do that I maximized electric usage only to the extent of making sure the battery was pretty much gone upon the return to home. Otherwise I drive with some gusto. But most of the trips had some ICE use. In fact, If i anticipate using it, I always try to warm up the ICE at low speed in battery hold mode on my way out to the highway~1.5 miles. I just don't trust letting it come on for the first time cold when the computer thinks it needs it.

In summary I'd say it is a hot rod, not a sports car, but a great economy car if something close to $40,000 qualifies as economical.

 

Ive been getting 55.8 mpg using the brim to brim calculation during a 463 mile journey. Not happy with that figure tbh

 

in the picture in your post, what is the significance of the two numbers 1 - 966, 2 - 463.2? I can't seem to figure out what each one is telling me.

 

Definitely getting more MPG than that dvdwoo as a finger in the air I would say I am getting around 65+
Do you drive it hard? I get the impression its all about the way you drive the vehicle and what resources the car is using air con heated seats etc.

 

i have a progressive acceleration therefore don't drive it hard as my intention on the motorway was to see how economical i could be. i did not use air con. heating was use sparingly, putting it on for 20-30 secs to heat the cabin then turn off.

the car seemed to constantly charge the battery in hybrid hold.

 

The quote function didn't work on my post - I was quoting Peter Danson's reply. I'm still waiting delivery for my etron (July) and curious about some of the finer details.

 

Its interesting that I too wrestled with all these questions about what the vehicle did when the battery was flat and whether the petrol engine could cope with the extra load it was pulling on its own, In truth when you actually get to drive the vehicle for an extended period you find out that the car looks after its self quite reassuringly.
A nod to Audi for designing an engine management system that thus far seems to do the job pretty well.
Of course there will be niggles which I assume will be ironed out in future generations of the car.
For now I find the vehicle to be everything I thought it would be and future owners of this car I am sure will not be disappointed.

 

Agreed: as a driver it really doesn't require any thought - the car just switches between the engines, charges/holds battery as needed, without it much affecting how it drives - on our mixture of short urban journeys and longer drives in the countryside we are finding the net result is a nippy economical car.

 

I've had my car for almost 1 month now, clocking in at about 680 miles. Today it got it's first trip to the mechanic.

I drove it around for about 30 minutes this morning with a full battery, and after a quick stop I got in again and tried starting the engine. As soon as I pressed the ignition button, I got three weird warnings.

- Drive system: System fault! Safely stop vehicle
- Max. engine speed: 3000 rpm
- Alternator fault: battery is not being charged

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• akafrans
• Apr 15, 2015

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• akafrans
• Apr 15, 2015

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• akafrans
• Apr 15, 2015

A mechanic stopped by, measuring the voltage of the battery, and he said it was very low, almost dead. He tried to jumpstart the battery, but no luck. Then they towed me back to the Audi dealer/mechanic and I got a brand new rental A3 until they fix the issue. They had never heard about that issue, as I guessed.

I'll give an update when I hear anything..

 

@akafrans, When I took delivery of my e-tron in mid-January, I noticed that the 12 V battery had a low state of charge. This was somewhat annoying as it the vehicle had probably been sitting at the dealer's storage yard since mid December and would possibly have started to sulphate. Anyway, I put it on charge for a day and it seems to be OK now. This may have been what happened to your battery and, if you have been using EV mode for the majority of your motoring, you may have suffered irreversible damage.

 

How galling! Hope it's swiftly fixed..