My Experience with the Audi e-tron: A Hugely Capable Car with Some Challenges to Overcome

I've had the pleasure of spending time with the Audi e-tron, and I must say that it's a car that delivers on its promises. As a big Audi fan, I was excited to see how this electric vehicle would live up to my expectations. From the moment I got behind the wheel, I knew that this car was going to be special.

The Audi e-tron is hugely capable, and I mean that in every sense of the word. The technology on board is top-notch, with touchscreen displays that feature haptic feedback – a feature that I think is particularly impressive. The virtual cockpit is also incredibly easy to navigate, thanks to its seamless integration with Google Maps and other navigation systems. This makes the MMI system feel powerful and user-friendly, which is exactly what you'd expect from an Audi.

The interior of the car is equally impressive, with beautiful materials and a spec list that's hard to beat. It feels like a properly rounded car, one that checks all the right boxes. However, there is one area where I think the e-tron falls short: price. With a starting price of around £70-£80,000, it's certainly not an affordable option for many buyers. For comparison, my Audi S4 was less than a year old and cost around £40,000 – just a smidge over 50 grand. The e-tron is significantly more expensive, but I understand that this is partly due to the high-quality materials and technology used in its construction.

One area where the e-tron excels is in terms of range. With an estimated 200 miles on a full charge, it's clear that Audi has made significant strides in improving the range of their electric vehicles. In contrast, my S4 has a range of around 350 miles – although this depends on the driver and road conditions. However, for me, the answer to the question of whether an e-tron would replace my S4 is not as simple as it might seem. The issue is not with the car itself, but with the charging infrastructure.

Unfortunately, I think we still have a long way to go in terms of charging infrastructure. While the e-tron's range is excellent for many drivers, I'm afraid that it doesn't quite meet my needs. As someone who likes to travel and explore new places, I often find myself on journeys that don't allow time for charging stops. And with the current state of charging infrastructure in the UK, this can be a major challenge. For example, our house in Cornwall is a fishing village with limited parking spaces – making it impossible to charge my car there. With a journey of over 240 miles to get there, I'd struggle to keep the e-tron charged on the way.

I think this highlights one of the biggest challenges facing electric cars: charging infrastructure. While they're excellent for drivers who can plan their journeys around charging stops, it's not always feasible for everyone. And if you're someone like me who needs to be able to drive without worrying about charging time, an e-tron might not be the best choice.

That being said, I do think that the e-tron is a wonderful car – and one that would be perfect for many drivers. Its range, technology, and interior all make it an excellent option for those who want to go electric. It's just that, in my case, there are some practical considerations that mean I'd need to re-think my decision before buying one.

One final thing to note is that the e-tron does have a slightly longer range than other models of electric car – with an estimated 10 miles on a full charge, which is great. However, this still means it won't be enough for me and my family's lifestyle. And while I think Audi has made significant strides in improving the range of their electric vehicles, there's still more work to be done.

In conclusion, I've had an absolute blast driving the Audi e-tron – and I can see why it's such a popular choice among car enthusiasts. However, as someone with specific needs and requirements, I think I'll have to wait a bit longer before making a decision about whether to buy one. With some further development of charging infrastructure, I'm confident that electric cars like the e-tron will become more accessible to everyone – not just those who can plan their journeys around charging stops.

Thanks again to Outer UK for lending me the car for a week – it's been an absolute pleasure to drive, and I've enjoyed every minute of it.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys and welcome to petrol ped and welcome to my s4 as you probably know by now I absolutely love this car after all it is the second one of these that I've owned but what you might not know is when we were looking to replace this car at the back end of last year indeed we've talked about replacing this car for some time one of the things you might not know is we were seriously considering whether we should move to electric I have driven a number of electric cars ranging from an e golf all the way up to a kind of Tesla Model S and Tesla Model X and the Jaguar ipace and they've they've all impressed me in their own way I've also driven a number of hybrids and they've impressed me in their own way but the big question was could we replace this s4 which is a performance car but does like the old Super Plus unleaded with an electric car could an electric car fit into our lives and I don't think it was until I drove the Jaguar ipace that I thought this is a car from the mainstream manufacturer and it really did feel like a car that happened to be in evey where am I going with this well there are a number of mainstream manufacturers that have bought EVs out to market within the last six to twelve months and one of them is Aldi and the question I want to ask in this film is could the new electric vehicle from Audi the e-tron realistically be a replacement for this car when the time comes to change this car don't get me wrong I'm not doing a youtuber thing I'm not flipping my car instantly within a couple of months of having it we're gonna have this car for probably another two or three years but could an e-tron be my next car well there's one parked just over there let's one take a look and see if I can answer that question well here she is a very handsome looking car and then this galaxy blue paintwork I must say I think this is one of the most beautiful colours on any car I've seen if you catch the light right on this car it's got such a deep metallic Fleck it's beautiful it is an optional paint color but stunning car in this particular color but there are many interesting things to talk about this car firstly clearly it is an SUV type format but let's have a bit of a conversation around the car and a few things and I guess we need to really start with what's happening down here and that is it's currently on charge now then the car is currently on charge now as a press car it comes with a 3 pin charger that you just plug into your normal household main socket and quite frankly that charger isn't really very good because it takes such a long time to charge the car it only puts six miles of range per hour into the car and a full charge can take well more than 40 hours and I'm finding the pain already because I use this car yesterday I've had it on charge overnight all night and I've woken up this morning I've hardly got enough charge to do what I need to do today so that's not great so what you really need to do is have a proper charging unit installed at your home they come in a couple of variants a 3.7 kilowatt and a 7 kilowatt and that will be three times faster than this 3 pin so you can put about 18 miles per hour of charge into the car so you can get a full charge in about 14 hours unfortunately anything more powerful than that so there is a 22 kilowatt hour charger but that requires three phase mains electricity which you're not going to have in a standard domestic am setting what you can then do clearly is use the public charging points now there are 50 kilowatt and 150 kilowatt charging points out there there's 50 kilowatt ones you can kind of I think they're about 65 miles per 30 minutes something like that so you could certainly top the car up while you're having a coffee 30 minutes to an hour and you'd have pretty much a full a full battery charge and 150 watt ones if you can find them because I know there aren't as many of those around it's much much quicker but that that is problem number one for me on the 3-pin charge it completely pointless to be honest it takes such a long time to charge the car and there is and certainly if you're in the UK you can get a five hundred pound grant towards the cost of installation of a faster charger at home but that's that if you like that the first consideration however the good news is once you've got the electricity in the car this car only costs in the region of five pence per mile to run and that means a full charge now this car it depends on a few things but sort of it's got a ninety five kilowatt hour batteries I think it's 210 miles 220 miles of range that's kind of what I got on a full charge yesterday that will cost you about 10 pounds so you know to fill the car up with a couple hundred miles of range 10 quid that's not bad going but let's jump inside the car and talk a little bit about the internal technology because it's it's a stunning place in the cockpit and I quite like a few bits of the architecture that hopefully will drip through into other outies in the range but let's jump inside and show you the inside of the e-tron welcome to the inside of the Audi e-tron now if you've ever been in an Audi this is a very familiar place but also an unfamiliar place there are things that I would expect the kind of button controls the steering wheel the display in front of me all look very familiar but it's only really when you bring the car into life by starting it and clearly the thing I would miss is you don't get up lovely v6 that I get in my x4 but you get these touchscreen displays now if you don't like your piano black touchscreen displays this car is not going to be for you and I think the first time I saw these was in things like the valar or the Porsche Panamera and loads of people comment about fingerprints and electronics braking however I have to say that these two touch screens here are brilliant so the way you control all of the MMI in my s4 is by a little jog wheel and as you can kind of put them letters and shapes into it or you can just use a turning jog wheel this is all touchscreen and it is the most sensitive and lovely and tactile touchscreen it has a really lovely haptic you can just feel the screen give way as you put your finger on it that's what this little clicks is very very tactile you can swipe it's just a very nice familiar place if you're an Audi an Audi user but I love the touch screen and then this is a kind of new screen where you've got various controls around things like your air conditioning now all I would say is in my s4 you may well have seen the video where I kind of complain about the iPad being stuck on the dashboard there you go Abby you can do it you can integrate two screens into the dashboard and they look stunning beautiful that's that's what we want we don't want when iPad stuck on the dashboard the next thing which is quite nice is this central console it doesn't have a cover over it's almost like a kind of got these two flying buttresses either side and then inside here you've got cupholders and you've also got a wireless charging port or pad for your smartphone with a little retention clip I really like that and you've got loads of us be connectors and so on that can go in there that's quite a nice space and you've got lots of kind of storage and cubby holes I like that a lot but this new gear selector this is very new for rowdy it's not like the kind of you either have a sort of traditional looking gear stick or in mind it's like a flat one this this is solid and then you've basically got this little selector on the right-hand side I really really like that takes a little bit of getting used to but I like that a lot so overall and it's got virtual cockpit it's got all the toys on this car it's got the most fantastic adaptive cruise control with a speed sign recognition really really cool place very comfy very comfy seats and quickly jump in the back and see what the real leg rooms like this is a much bigger car than the s4 so I shouldn't be wanting for leg room in the back I didn't think I would loads of room here in fact it's really spacious and airy panoramic glass roof in this car you know me for me that is a must spec option in any car and then you've still got a continuation of that touchscreen architecture here you've got a couple of USB ports down there super place to be question is can you get two dogs in the boot let's go find out well this is the most important thing could this be a pup transporter of course it can we've got loads of room in the boot here for the two pups and that for us would be the most important consideration because we this one travels in a little crate still in the boot so we need lots of space for you and you what do you think of the new eater on girls hmm yeah I think I think we get an approval I think we get an approval I had so many comments when I did my recent Bentley video where are the pups why didn't you put them in the car well here they are so let's take a look around the outside of this car and then we will take it up the road for a very quiet Drive but a very impressive one as well now the obvious thing to state as soon as you drive an electric car is they're super quiet the only thing you really get is Road and wind noise and there isn't a great deal of that in this car and then you get this background whine of the electric motors which is quite cool but I kind of do miss that engagement that you get from an engine so what I'm going to do very briefly is kind of talk through a few of the things now the most obvious thing to say is this car is i only has one gear so there's no gears which is quite interesting because when I got in the car I looked on the steering wheel and I've got paddle shifters on the steering wheel and I'm thinking eldan a minute it's an electric car there's no gears well those paddle shifters in this car are they basically enable you to manage the regenerative braking now one of the characteristics of you if you've never driven an electric car before and it varies from different year within different models and but when you lift off the gas the motors basically start to recuperate some of the energy and turn the kinetic energy into battery juice and that's that's regenerative braking so and when it's you know Rumble with the eye pace you could actually turn it on so it was that strong that when you lift it off it the car same at a Tesla with this the regen braking isn't that that severe but what I can do what I'm going into a corner is downshift the paddle and basically I start to get three different stages of retardation and that's putting a charge back into the batteries I quite like that I've actually quite liked it if it was a little bit more severe and we've also got outtie Drive select in here and so I've basically got within the drive select program a number of different modes all controlled by this touchscreen interface down here I've got an off-road mode I haven't got time to take his car offroad sadly but I've got off-road all Road efficiency comfort and auto I'm in efficiency at the moment and that does everything it can to give you the maximum range possible and now if I then went into the auto mode the auto mode is basically the one that really adapts the car - however you drive and for me having driven in a few of these different modes that's probably the one I would want to drive in the most you get a bit more response from the throttle it now starts to feel much more like a kind of sporty er car in efficiency mode the throttles a bit dead they pull away from the lines a little bit dead because the cars really setting itself up to give you the maximum range it can as soon as you go into the auto mode it's just a little bit more sporty a little bit more responsive and then you have a car that's much much more fun to drive as well on the brakes I think the brakes are a combination of pads on the actual discs but also regenerative braking and they're quite it's quite a different braking feel accelerating out the corners the great thing about electric cars is this instant talk there's no kick down there's no changing down a gear it's just bang straightaway there and there's oodles of it in this car I also have a sport mode all I do is just pull the little selector back and stick it into sport mode and all that does is he gives me more access to the power my range goes down a little bit and clearly if you're gonna drive it around its torque load a lot then if your range is gonna suffer the the and it's no different really to approaching a diesel or petrol car the harder you push on in a diesel petrol car the more fuel you use it's exactly the same thing in an electric car if you are pushing the throttle down hard accessing all that instant torque and accelerating hard your range is going to drop and your your energy consumption of your batteries is gonna go up so what if you wanna push on a little bit what if you want to it's a it's a properly quick cardless then the top speed isn't huge it's just a 120 I think but you know in terms of how it feels when you're pushing on it's a big SUV format so you know it's certainly not that small light nimble sports car but it has very good road manners the instant torque allows you to really pull out of the corners this is your Quattro four-wheel drive so you've got plenty of traction and actually it's a really engaging car to drive and it it kind of delivers you that that grin for mapper just in a different way so what are my final impressions of the Audi e-tron and can I answer the question I posed at the beginning of this video could I replace my s4 at some point in the future with an electric car and if I did would it be an Audi e-tron so I guess the first thing to say is this car is hugely hugely capable it really is I mean I'm a big Audi fan anyway but the technology in here I love the touchscreen displays with the haptic feedback I think they are very very good indeed and with combined with the virtual copy in their ease of navigation and Google Maps integration it makes the whole MMI very usable and very powerful so I love that very much it feels like an Audi the the materials the cabin the spec is is beautiful so all of those boxes are ticked it is a little bit expensive for me it's kind of you know 70 to 80 grand it depends on how many boxes you take clearly so there's still a bit of work to be done on the cost because if you think my s4 less than a year old was just a smidge over 40 grand about 40 mm quit new about 50,000 quid so this this there's quite a lot more cost in this car but you have clearly it's cheaper to run a full charge in this cars temp out whereas a full tank in my LD is currently about fifty pounds the range for a full charge and this is about 200 miles the range in my Audi s4 is about 350 miles that depends who's driving mrs. pett repair driving that's not only about two hundred and fifty miles to a tank however for me the answer to that question has nothing to do with the car it's all about the charging infrastructure and right now the charging infrastructure in my opinion and I would love to know what you think about it but in my opinion I just don't think it's there I don't think we've got enough quick charges so you have to really plan your journeys and really plan your week with the car and for the kind of lifestyle I have and that mrs. pett repaired has we often don't have chance to plan a journey we have to get in the car and go and often that timeframe between leaving and getting to the destination doesn't allow time for a 45-minute or hour long coffee stop and that's a big challenge and clearly if you're going to drive to a destination in charge while you're there great but we have a house in Cornwall and currently we couldn't drive this car to Cornwall because we've got nowhere to charging at the house in Cornwall because of simple fishing village and so we wouldn't if we had an electric car we would really struggle to take it to our home in Cornwall it's 240 miles to get there so we'd have to charge it on the way and on the way back and we would struggle to be charging while we were there so for our lifestyle that's that's a big big challenge and I think you know good as electric cars are getting we really need to understand how we improve the charging infrastructure to make those decisions easier but from a car point of view I knew this car would be good I've driven lots of electric cars and they've all got their good points but this is a properly properly rounded car really good we just need to increase range so to 10 miles on a full charge is great but that needs to be for me up at the 300 350 miles of actual range brings that you're going to likely see and then once it starts to get to that and we get better charging infrastructure I think more and more of us will you know it's ultimately the way we're going to go either that or hydrogen cars when and if they ever come out so really interesting time spent with a car I hope you've enjoyed the video I'd love to know what you think of the e-tron and I love it to bits it just has a few things that we need to sort out before I would for me personally and my lifestyle before I would consider buying one and in a way I'm a bit disappointed because I really did think that the time was nearly here where I where I would actually consider buying an electric car but I hope you've enjoyed that one if you have done so please give me a thumbs up comments below are always welcome and if you haven't done so already please subscribe to Petra for plenty more content to come a huge thank you to outer UK for lending me the car for a week it's been a real pleasure to drive I've enjoyed it very very much it had its challenges but none of those would you anyway I will see all the next film guys but you take a drive safe\n"