Audi e-tron 50 Quattro Review

Last updated on September 15th, 2021 at 08:51 am

Intro, Price, Options and Verdict

Introduction

The Audi e-tron is an impressively hefty block of German engineering, positioned between the Q5 and Q7 in terms of overall bulk. It also comes with a hefty price tag of up to £74,000 – and that’s before customisation. First revealed as a concept car at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2015, the Audi e-tron finally landed with German consumers in March 2019. Despite multiple issues around the launch, including an extensive delay in getting the car’s software certified by the German transport authorities (KBA), sales of the car have been pretty strong in several countries, including Norway and The Netherlands.

Customer feedback on the original e-tron has already been taken on board by Audi, and it is planning a revised Sportback version to arrive in the market during Q2 of 2020. With that in mind, we decided to take out the existing Audi e-tron 50 Quattro Technik (which is closer to £60,000) for a test with two agendas in mind: First evaluate the car in its own right, given the low priced leasing deals that seem to be on offer at the moment and second, to lay down a marker for the new Sportback when it finally lands. Price and value are two different things. Does the new pricing on the Audi e-tron represent good value?

Price and Options

We decided to test the entry-level spec Technik model, which starts at a shade under £60,000, while the top Launch Edition has a baseline price closer to £72,000, with Sport and S line versions in between. There are differences in trim level, but even the most basic model comes with electric seats, high quality interior and entertainment built-in. If you prefer black, then you are in luck, as it’s the only paint option that doesn’t require a supplement of at least £750.

The sound system offers 180 watts of amplification, channelled through 10 speakers, including a subwoofer. You get the Audi Virtual Cockpit and MMI Navigation Plus systems as well – providing SatNav from a supplied SIM and customisable instrument display. You also get basic cruise control and assistance with parking and some help with braking as well as lane-departure warnings.

If you have an additional £1,895 available, then you can add the Comfort and Sound Pack, which gives you a more powerful Head Up Display, RGB internal lighting, 16-speaker B&O sound system and 360 degree camera. For £2,200 more you can get Night Vision Assistance. There are no battery options, however. All 50 quattro versions come with a 71kWh battery as standard for a range of around 186 miles. If you need a range that’s just over 200 miles, then you will need the more expensive 55 quattro instead, with its 95kWh battery.

When we tested the car, there were business leases (ex VAT) with a 5,000 mile allowance at just over the £300 mark. As we write the conclusion, these have disappeared and we're seeing leases with 10,000 miles closer to £444 a month – it's certainly a good idea to shop around. Also, its worth holding off on a business lease until after 6th April 2020, where the BiK should drop to zero. Overall, it's an expensive car to purchase, but there are some very affordable leasing options and you must remember that ‘filling the tank' at home will cost you less than £10.

Design, Comfort and Storage

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.

In-Car Entertainment and Controls

With a triple-screen display, parts of which can be adjusted to your individual preferences through Audi Virtual Cockpit, it’s fair to say that the ICE and controls are Audi’s strong points. Whether you’ve driven an entry-level A1, mid-range A5 or the high-end Q7, you will be familiar with the layout and design logic. The electric front seats are fully adjustable, and it will take you no time at all to familiarise yourself with the cockpit.

The more useful features are enabled by the built-in SIM (Audi Connect – with a free 36-month subscription) that gives you SatNav (MMI Navigation Plus), traffic updates, fuel prices, downloads and the ability to set up a fast hotspot within the car for people who need access. You will pair your phone (Android and Apple are both fully supported) and use that for entertainment or streaming – so no need to worry about your friends having to add a second number for you.

The basic audio system (if a 180w, 10-speaker system can be called basic) is more than adequate and you’d need to be a real audiophile to want the B&O upgrade for £800. It has a reversing camera, but the cool stuff like a head up display, proximity alerts and adaptive cruise control only really come into their own with the various upgrades. In a car costing the best part of £60,000 – you might have expected more to be included.

Performance, Running Costs, Range, and Safety

Performance

We all know that the force required to accelerate an object depends entirely on its mass. Depending on the configuration and number of passengers, the Audi e-tron can weigh close to 2,600Kg. That’s nearly half a ton more than a Tesla Model S and almost 200Kg more than a Model X. While the Teslas are limited to 155mph, this Audi e-tron 50 quattro tops out at 118mph. The 0-62 of 6.8 seconds is close to what a Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer would have achieved as a very respectable time in 1978. However, in 2020, a Tesla Model S or X that has been configured for performance, can hit that speed in 2.4 to 2.8 seconds respectively. In other words, while it may feel quick when compared to yesterday’s fossil fuel cars, it’s a slouch when compared to the best electric cars around today.

Handling is something else. It looks like a tank, carries a tank-like amount of weight and the cornering is unsurprisingly unresponsive. Understeer is a big issue and going into any corner with speed will take some getting used to.  If you’ve ever driven an old Bentley, you’ll know that it felt an awful lot like driving your sofa down the high street. Audi has managed to capture that feeling perfectly with the e-tron. One last thing worth mentioning is Audi’s peak-performance cap. The engine can deliver maximum power for about eight seconds, before dropping back to a lower power mode.

Running Costs

If you get this car on a two-year lease, you are in luck. The service interval of two years, or 20,000 miles, means that you’re unlikely to need any work before you hand it back. Here at WhichEV, we periodically update our running costs based on average electricity prices in the region. For the start of 2020, we’re working with 14p per kWh, which means it will cost you close to £10 to refill your e-tron at home. This isn't much for 190 miles of driving compared to a petrol or diesel car, but at 5.2p a mile it's on the pricey side when (for example) a Tesla Model 3 is more like 3p a mile. The car also sits in insurance group 50, which is about as high as it can get.

However, if your company buys the e-tron for you, there are still huge tax benefits from zero benifit-in-kind (BiK) as a company car like any EV. Over a three-year period of having the Audi e-tron 50 Quatrro as a company car, a 40 per cent taxpayer would only be looking at a tax bill of £719.88 in total for a car registered in 2020-21, compared to over £10K for a fossil-fuel equivalent, and a 20 per cent taxpayer would be charged half that, although we doubt you'd be receiving this car as a benefit in this earnings tax bracket.

Range

While performance may be a little lacklustre compared to the best in class, it’s the Audi’s range figure that’s really disappointing. The reason for the lack of range is that this is Audi’s first serious attempt at an electric car, so it’s heavy, with early battery technology and a passive regenerative braking system that does you no favours when you’re trying to get every mile possible out of your stored energy.

Our calculations are based on a motorway drive, within the speed limit and in reasonable weather conditions. They show that you’ll get around 160 miles on a full charge. A return trip from London Piccadilly to Manchester Piccadilly is almost exactly 400 miles. You would need three full charges to achieve that distance. The long-distance version of Tesla’s Model X will give you close to 300 miles on a full battery, so one complete charge and a quick one top up should see you complete the same journey. We will be focusing more on a car’s ability to do Piccadilly (London) to Piccadilly (Manchester) in the future. The WhichEV P2P figure will be the number of charges needed to complete a return trip of 400 miles.

Safety

One look at the Audi e-tron tells you that you’re unlikely to come off worst in a crash. Unsurprisingly, it has a five-star NCAP rating and other neat equipment to help you stay safe, including auto emergency braking, lane assist, speed assist and advanced warnings about braking near roundabouts and junctions.

Key Specifications

* Based on a domestic electricity cost of 14p per kWh