Define "bad"...?

I've driven 50,000 miles over 2 years in an early 2019 eTron 55. On one hand, it's inefficient, heavy and has cost Audi a small fortune in warranty repairs. On the other, it's more than fast enough, beautifully quiet and luxurious. I'm glad I didn't buy one, but I'm also very happy with my choice as a lease vehicle.

 

early 2019 ......a small fortune in warranty repairs

yeah that sort off 5h1t from an audi would engender hate.

 

Drove one to the mountains skiing last season. Twice.

It wasn’t a horrible experience.

 

I'm not convinced about it's as inefficient as people say. Compare it to the Model X an it's similar reap world not the fairytale Tesla claims.

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I'm not convinced about it's as inefficient as people say. Compare it to the Model X an it's similar reap world not the fairytale Tesla claims.

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It's much worse than the Model X, believe me.

 

Much as electric driver said, I like driving it and I'm glad I chose it over the Mercedes and Jaguar equivalents but I'd rather have a smaller electric car and therefore more efficient. I wouldn't buy any electric vehicle (or indeed any complicated one of any fuel) but it's turned me on to EVs and I would be very sad to go back to fossil cars.

 

A6 Hybrid? We had one back in 2012….it was a beautiful car, swift quiet and luxurious……I hope they do not mean that one?

 

No… it’s really, really good.

My only dealbreaker is that it doesn’t have a Creep mode, but aside from that, it’s pretty much spot on.

The Sportback has great sedan looks, it goes and grips like anything, and the interior is top tier.

 

I couldn't get my head around the 'one pedal' / regen. Seemed very odd setup with the daft paddles and no real mode for working the regen amount out. Drove well enough though if you thought of it as any other Audi. Maybe I hadn't worked out how it should be setup, but like the bmw smart mode or B mode much better, seemed a lot more intuitive. Didn't try the jag out though, as don't particularly like the styling.

 

The way it handles regen is one of my favourite things. The auto mode (default) is intuitive and increases regen when needed (bends, roundabouts, vehicles in front) and allows coasting when the road is clear. The paddles allow you to select from two preset levels of regen dynamically. You can override this in the menus and set to standard, manually selected regen if you prefer. My only gripe is that I'd like higher levels of regen to be available from the paddles.

I know this is the great argument in EV driving - but I really don't see how having to constantly balance the accelerator to achieve a coasting position is an advantage. If I want to stop, I press the brake pedal. The car will blend in regen as much as possible and, with the eTron, that's a lot. I don't want the car to jam the brakes on every time I take my foot off the accelerator.

I've driven a fair few miles in the iPace, too. This has a selectable creep mode, which I initially liked, but have soon got used to the eTron with no creep. The regen in the Jag just made me cross - no way to disable it.

 

There is a guy who posted on here with one that was on track to loose 30% of it's battery capacity in 3 years.

All be it with high miles and number of rapid charges. Presumably it will get a warranty battery replacement at some stage but I would say that's pretty bad.....

 

In fairness, any EV with high mileage garnered via Rapid Charges will have a similarly hard time degradation wise.

 

Which ‘e-tron’, there are several?

The Q4 is a different proposition to a 55, is different to a 50 etc.

 

30% in three years though ? That is terrible. We are not talking stellar mileage here. 20k a year or so from memory. They have active cooling and designed to be QC at the end of the day.

We are not a warm country in the scheme of things which really kills battery's with QC.

The thread is on here somewhere maybe worth digging it out. I certainly wouldn't buy one used based on the battery longevity.

 

I vaguely remember dipping into it.

I’m sceptical how people are measuring degradation, and I also don’t put too much store on experience with one vehicle.

 

Need to talk efficiency not range.

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No, it's not that bad. Apart from early frustrations with the app, I'm really happy with mine. 180 mile round trip to a wedding at the weekend was absolutely no hassle. Range is fine, comfort and finish exemplary, drive is very good for a big, heavy car.

 

I’m not a massive fan of the e-tron for the reasons given above, but I’m less of a fan of Which, who appear to recommend or condemn on a whim. Or at least on very peculiar bases. A while back they did a feature on electric cars that failed to mention Tesla entirely, yet recommended cars like the electric Ford Focus, which is nolonger available (and in reality never was, with only a handful being imported). I’m no conspiracy theorist, but that’s proper weird.

 

yet recommended cars like the electric Ford Focus,

Probably had a big advertising order from Ford that month.

 

Which are crap. They have a tendency to draw conclusions based on really inappropriate criteria.

However.... based on a sample of the two folk I know with recent Audis, neither speak highly. They like the car when it works but both have had warranty failures. There are not etrons. A friend's Q5 needed a new steering rack at £4k. Just out of warranty and less than 20k miles.

It doesn't take many strong negative reports to push the rating down, especially if there aren't that many on the road.

 

Which are crap. They have a tendency to draw conclusions based on really inappropriate criteria.

However.... based on a sample of the two folk I know with recent Audis, neither speak highly. They like the car when it works but both have had warranty failures. There are not etrons.

You don’t see the irony?

 

Reading my copy of Which? Yesterday and they have a small article on the most and least loved cars in the UK. They listed the E-Tron as the third least loved car

Which e-tron in particular?

At my last count, I believe I made it to be about 752 distinct variants with the name 'e-tron' somewhere in the model name.

It's a bit like saying 'the least loved car was red'.

 

I love Bjorn and for me the test of a new car I wait on most. I'm saying that owners experience across many owners suggests the efficiency gap is nowhere near as much as people suggest. Even those figures are 12% different yet one is heralded as amazing and one terrible.

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I learned a long time ago never to trust ANY reviewer. It is human nature to be biased and the subjective always becomes "facts". Like when a reviewer claims the Model X is far more efficient than an E-Tron. The reality is it is 12% which in nobody's book should ever constitute, "far more". It's literally the difference between ~200 miles and ~220 miles and hardly make or break.

When a reviewer says the E-Tron 50 is aimed at nobody they 100% literally mean "THEM" personally. When a reviewer goes through the positives and negatives of a number of cars and proclaims the objective loser "the winner" just cus they think it has "character despite all its flaws".

When a reviewer compares an E-Tron to a Model 3 and proclaims the model 3 "far more efficient". While missing the utter irony and hypocrisy in their "factual claim", that one is a fat SUV and the other a small sleek sallon.

I use reviews to give me ideas on looks and some basic facts so that I can make a shortlist of cars I will then go and test for myself.

The E-Tron is not an efficient EV but it is a good car.

I always advise people to test for themselves and make their own minds up what is or is not "good". Ignore everyone else's opinion and make your own based on objective facts and testing.

 

The E-Tron is not an efficient EV but it is a good car.

This is what I can never get my head around. It’s a great car in all other aspects, and importantly drives like any other Audi.

But it has 12% less efficiency (which increases if you go much above 70 mph, or up a mountain), combined with a smaller usable pack. Which really limits the range on long journeys.

Fine if you have good charging infrastructure. But we probably wasted a good 40 minutes to an hour, diverting to the right charger, despite its excellent charging speed. On a 3.5 hour journey.

 

I think we all recognise the E-Tron is a bit of a lash up to get an EV onto the market by taking an existing VW SUV platform, ripping out the stinking diesel and replace it with electric motors and batteries but is really this bad?

This makes it sound like the car engineering equivalent of the intercity 125

 

Not understanding this comparison at all, sorry…..

 

The Sportback versions have better efficiency more in line with the Model X (about 5% - 7% worse). But from your post above, it was clear now you were talking about useable battery, combined with marginally worse efficiency, combined with charging infrastructure and conflating all three into inefficiency alone.

It is a common mistake and would be akin to someone claiming an E-Tron 55 was way more efficient than a Renault Zoe because it could charge3 faster, had a bigger battery and had more range.

 

The Sportback versions have better efficiency more in line with the Model X (about 5% - 7% worse). But from your post above, it was clear now you were talking about useable battery, combined with marginally worse efficiency, combined with charging infrastructure and conflating all three into inefficiency alone.

I conflated nothing.

Others were trying to walk back the claims about it being ‘as efficient’. As you say, on all counts it’s sub-par. They could have specced a bigger battery to make up for the deficiency. We were also comparing equivalent classes of vehicle - large SUVs.

 

To get back to the OPs/Which’s question/conclusion, it’s only ‘bad’ if you don’t want one or don’t believe such a vehicle should ever exist.

Efficiency is but one measure of a car, it’s not automatically bad just because other equivalent cars go further on a given amount of electricity. I’m sure the Audi excels in other areas.

It boils down to whether you like big Audi electric SUVs really, assuming ‘e-tron’ means 50/55 here, and a lot of the stuff being talked about is subjective.

I mean, I admire the Model X technically, but wouldn’t buy one on looks alone, similar with the cyber truck.

 

Is this aimed at me ? I'm averaging 2.6m/kWh. If we just take my longer journeys I do so far its averaging 2.8m/KWh all done at a fairly constant 70mph. I see in one of bjorns videos with the Model Y at an average of about 75mph he's getting 2.9m/kWh. I've not watched the whole series to see how he's getting on but it was in the 20's degC so comparable. Do remember walking back anything.

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Is this aimed at me ? I'm averaging 2.6m/kWh. If we just take my longer journeys I do so far its averaging 2.8m/KWh all done at a fairly constant 70mph. I see in one of bjorns videos with the Model Y at an average of about 75mph he's getting 2.9m/kWh. I've not watched the whole series to see how he's getting on but it was in the 20's degC so comparable. Do remember walking back anything.

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If you mean my post then no. My post was aimed at Cah197 contradicting some of his/her own posts.

Model X has far better consumption
Model X has the same battery size as an E-Tron

I am not trying to be confrontational with Cah197, just trying to correct misonceptions and am happy to be corrected myself. He/she does at least now agree that the extra range on the Model X is down to both a marginal increase in battery capacity and a marginaly better efficiency. ~12% + 10% = why the Model X has roughly 20-25% more range than an E-Tron 55. It is demonstrably not massively more efficient.

 

Yes inelegant perhaps isn’t the best description - the APT tale is a fascinating one.

If it’s maiden journey hadn’t happened in winter - with a load of journalists on board - it may well have (metaphorically) taken off..

 

Just like Sinclair launching the C5 in Winter…..not a smart move TBH.