Last updated on September 15th, 2021 at 08:51 am
Exterior Design
The e-Tron is a tank. There’s no two ways about it. We spoke with a car designer in the USA last year, who told us that he likes to start with a big, rectangular block of clay – and to then carefully remove material until he ‘finds the car within’. If Audi’s design team were using clay to create the e-tron, there would be very few shavings lying on the floor.
While it gives a sturdiness and powerful feel to the vehicle, you also know that there is a lot of weight here that will take a tremendous amount of energy to move. That energy needs to come from the batteries and that’s where your biggest issue with this car starts. Sure, you know that there will be boot space and comfort, but you will be paying for that with range, speed and handling. The basic 50 quattro weighs in at a hefty 2,445kg, before passengers sit in it and the 55 quattro is even heavier.
Interior Comfort
Welcome to the German’s home ground. While the Japanese may have affordable reliability sewn up and Tesla’s performance is nothing short of eye-watering, interior comfort is where this Audi lives. The seats are sumptuous and very easy to adjust. The driver’s side even has a 4-way lumbar adjustment, to ensure optimal support for your spine.
You can easily put four large people in this car and whizz them around all day long, without complaints. The 40-20-40 configuration for the rear seats, means you can pull the middle down and get the ‘BA Club Europe’ experience. There are plenty of places to store your drinks, as well as plug-points for chargers. The driver gets their own Qi charger, complete with retention clip to prevent it disconnecting.
Storage and Load Carrying
If you fold the rear seats down and negotiate the lip at the bottom of the boot, then the storage space on offer is pretty vacuous – allegedly 1,755 litres. On the other hand, the same can’t be said for a holiday or business trip with three companions that need to bring luggage.
Searching through the Audi website for the actual boot size is a disaster. At first glance, you’d imagine that the boot offers way more than a meter to the back seats, a height of 75cm and a width of more than a metre. In reality, with the way the rear door tails off, the useable space is significantly less. So the quoted figure of 605 litres is a bit misleading, unless you’re transporting lemonade in a flexible container.
Working with medium-sized suitcases that are 75x45x25cm, you will just about get four into the boot – on their edges. Some hand luggage might be squeezed around the sides, but it’s more likely that you’ll need to fold the middle seat down and even have some passengers carrying bags on their laps.
The actual space is comparable with other SUVs in this price range from Jaguar and Mercedes, but the lack of overall volume shows you just how much of the car’s tank like structure has been filled with batteries, motors, cooling mechanisms etc.
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