Audi e-tron | Fully Charged

Like or more loathe them SUVs, they're the biggest segment of car in the world. Mercedes are about to launch the EQC, Jag launched the I-PACE fully electric SUV and now Audi have got the e-tron and this is their first fully electric offering and I'm going to be driving it for the next two solid days across the United Arab Emirates. So hot, dusty, unforgiving conditions. This is a 95 kilowatt hour SUV, 248.5 miles on the WLTP scale, so let's say 250 miles, more than 400 kilometers and it's the first car in the world to go into production with them. Non-mirrors, cameras instead of mirrors, not totally convinced. Let's go for a drive. The e-tron is no lightweight, in fact it's the heaviest beast in its class. It's heavier than a Model X by like 130 odd kilos, it's heavier than a Jag I-PACE by over 350 kilos and all that mass has to be stopped. Now Audi say sometimes being heavy plays in the favour of being an EV, I'm not too sure about that but that's why they've concentrated on saying they've got really efficient harvesting of energy on regen. Now what's weird is minus makes the regen more aggressive which I don't entirely understand and it's actually really really efficient. Going down that hill I managed to glean so many more kilometers back it was brilliant. So yes it's a heavy big mass to move along but I guess you can grab loads of miles back through that kinetic energy so that's a good thing. Okay so the main floor pan is obviously batteries and you've got two tiers here, this is the second level. We decided to install this what we call second floor in order to give the customer more range. So you've got 432 cells, 36 modules, yes 36 of these modules, 12 cells in each module, made by LG, is that right? Made by LG in Poland exactly. Right okay in Poland. The modules of the battery system we do ourselves at our CO2 neutral plant in Brussels. Okay so this car is made in Brussels? Car is made in Brussels and the battery assembly is also done in Brussels. Okay so less world travel for the components. Exactly. Okay does Audi make the motors for this car? We do very important parts of the motors ourselves in our factory in Gyor in Hungary. Okay. Yes and we also installed some years ago a technical center there to drive innovation for electric engines. Are you going to put all of this drivetrain in like an A6 Avant, an A4? As a group we have, you could call it two learning projects, created what we call the PPE, the premium platform electric and this will be the basis for all the new electric cars that you will see in the future, bigger cars. Yes. And the smaller cars will be based on what we call the MEB, the modular electric platform done by Volkswagen brand. The ID series. Exactly yeah and you will also see Audis based on this platform. Right charge time. Now one of the interesting things about the e-tron is the fact that you can charge it on either side. You've got these slide down lovely little ports on that side and on this side but you've got type 2 on the other side not CCS. This has CCS on well left hand drive on the driver's side. On the right hand drive it'll be the passenger side and it can charge. It's the first production electric car Audi says that can charge at 150 kilowatts. In other words 0 to 80 percent charge in less than half an hour. Okay we've now momentarily decamped out of my red e-tron we're going to go into a sort of weird zebra camo one to do a bit of off-roading on on the nature reserve here. What are the best aspects of off-road? Well you need instant torque, you need to be able to grip really well four-wheel drive. The other thing that's really handy especially in a wildlife reserve is you need to be able to do it all quietly in order to see some nature. Electric off-roading, it's the future. Oh and you can adjust your suspension up and down because it's got adjustable airbag suspension. This is when I press the off-road button. So I've got it on off-road and I can feel the air suspension is pumped higher so higher ground clearance. So rather predictably the quattro e-tron is effective off-road. I haven't done exactly challenging rock crawling but you know there's not really any point because you're not going to do it in this car. An off-roader is more rugged, an off-roader is more of your you know your defender, your land cruiser. A car that's built to go properly off-road but you do have that you do have the the safety net of having all-wheel drive whenever you need it. Come ice, come gravel, come snow, come sand. You've got the descent automatic descent control like now if I let off my foot, just let my foot off, it knows the gradient of the slope so it's slowing the car down. I can climb without any issue at all. I mean this is a big ox of a car like I said. It's nearly two and a half tons. Do you think, am I right in thinking that you guys decided to design the car and give it a look that's familiar so it doesn't feel too radical, too much of a departure for maybe existing Audi owners who have a Q5? You're 100% right. We had a lot of discussions about this issue. Do customers want to have something radically new? Do they have to want a radically new design or do they want something that they're used to and our decision was and our market research also showed that customers want to have something that they are familiar with and at the end of the day I believe that the best thing that can happen to electric mobility is when customers just choose depending on their personal mobility use case which drivetrain is the right one and then like they today choose between petrol and diesel, tomorrow they might choose between petrol, diesel and the electric drivetrain but nevertheless it has to be a very very good Audi with all the other aspects. It has to feel like an Audi. Exactly. If you compare it to an EV equivalent it's actually 30 centimetres shorter than a Tesla Model X or 13 centimetres longer than a Jag I-Pace but let's talk about the design for a second because this is the bit I enjoy. I think it's a pretty looking car actually. I think it's a better looking car than the Tesla Model X. I probably prefer I probably prefer the Jag I-Pace for being a little bit more creative however you can't lose sight of the fact that Audi wants to get people out of piston cars and into EVs and if it looks familiar and it has that class and grace about it which it does then that's a good thing if that's what you set out to achieve. At the front here you've got a grille which is that familiar kind of trapezoidal shape as Audi calls it which is the same throughout the Audi family. It's blocked off on the top third and the bottom third so it's only open on the middle bit and you can't quite see it here but if you look close behind this grille you've got active vents behind that which will open and close electronically and there's some active vents down in the main mouth of it down here as well. You've got a camera in there underneath the badge and you've also got the the adaptive cruise control radar here but of course this is this is what I want to do more of on fully charged. I want to do more off-roading because off-roading when it's electric powered is perfect. Slow speed, lots of nicely easily developed torque, grip on each wheel. Remember the e-tron like the I-Pace like the EQC Mercedes has got a front motor and a back motor so each axle has its own motor. So we have two engines, the rear engine a little bit stronger 140 kilowatts and the front engine a little bit less power 125 kilowatt. Right okay okay and then you've got the am I right in thinking that the suspension components, this is air suspension on the e-tron isn't it, are these components from existing Audis? Exactly, what we did with the car is we decided to make new what has to be new which is mainly the electric drivetrain and we took the components that have nothing to do with the electric car from our modular system that we call the MLB where we have the suspension which is mainly and then the brakes mainly from the Q7. We have for example the seats from the A6, the infotainment system is from the A8. So we took the best out of our modular system and from your portfolio exactly it's a big portfolio yes yes yeah and it makes pretty much sense because for the customer it just has to be a very good Audi yeah and I think therefore these modules are perfect. Talking of price by the way this car is going to come up for sale for 71,000 and a half thousand quid so 71 and a half thousand pounds it's a lot of money it's an expensive car and all those people out there that said that when when Jag brought out the I-Pace and it was coming out for 58, 59 grand basic and said that's way too expensive consider this the Jag is all aluminium the Jag is built completely bespoke EV from the ground up whereas this has lots of parts of the architecture are shared with the piston cousins this has Q7 suspension for example and this is on its highest setting so this comes with air adaptable air suspension as standard this is as tall as it's ever going to get this one's on 20s there's one 20 inch wheel design that which is this one there's two 21s to choose from and one of the 21s has like four slash cuts in it which match these four slash cuts here in the uh unique headlights which I do like actually yeah we're charging so you can see there's a little status light here that's telling me we're all right we're charging any red or any yellow it's bad news you can't see it in this bright arab emirates light but there is an led above there which illuminates the entire charging panel which is good for nighttime hookups not like that the original quattro back in 1979 was just called the Audi quattro and this is just called the Audi e-tron so it's a big milestone for uh I remember the original quattro quite well it comes as standard with led headlights and I'm pretty sure that Audi was the first car to a mass-produced car to have led headlights Audi was the first brand to bring that to market it's got this thing called an air curtain so this black little inlay here is a full vent and that vent channels air around here and over the wheel and then down the side here you've got this quite nice kind of indent and I like the side profile of this car you've got an indent here a crease which kicks down there's a waistline crease here but then there's a lovely haunch which kicks up over the back door handles the side profile of this car is really similar to a q5 but it has little features like that which I think look like the q2 which is a bit of a quirky kind of crossover which I think is one of the prettiest Audis personally of course you can't walk past them you've got these the uh optional they are optional um camera mirrors virtual mirrors whatever you want to call them I'm not really a fan of them Audi say it's the first production car to have them when I said that in the intro I thought I've seen another car with it this is the first mass-produced car with a camera available the first car I remember being in production is actually a vw group car it's the volkswagen xl1 you remember that car what an awesome thing it was a technological tour de force making our way to the back you've got these lovely smooth Audi are good at this really smooth roof bars that are quite aero and the whole aero theme continues throughout because you've got this cut in indent down at the bottom of the doors and again with these kind of streaks this plastic cladding and then while the suspension is up on its highest setting you can see all this soundproofing in here can you see it all and there's soundproofing throughout the car all underneath the back all underneath it's a flat floor car as you'd imagine and this covers up the battery pack and everything because they've tried to make it as quiet and composed and luxurious as possible which is why you've got the double glazed side glass on the front and the back glass is a optional double glazed let's go around to the back the back of the e-tron now I like the back of this it reminds me of the q8 which is a really new suv that's that's piston engine it's got this full width led rear light and I absolutely love it at night it's just a solid bar it looks absolutely gorgeous again it's not a standout car it's actually quite subtle if you didn't see the e-tron badge you just think it was a you know a fairly handsome well put together suv in the boot that is 660 litres of boot space which is really impressive the jag for example the eye pace is 656 and like the jag it also has a front boot a fruit bigger than a lot of cars they don't mention any of the literature audi that this is actually a storage area as well but this is purely for the cables look so all your cabling and all your clutter which is normally under the boot floor in the audi and there is an under boot floor area this is so much more useful because if you've got a boot full of stuff if you're on a journey you can't get your cables out whereas here they're all easily accessible you also have on the e-tron this false floor lift up the false floor and there's space here for a space saver wheel which I think will be optional when the car goes on sale and there's another little bit down there it's not quite a flat floor entry point but it's near as damn it flat floor you can't order it as a seven seater or a six seater like you can the tesla model x and the tesla model x does have a bigger boot the tesla model x is a bigger car this is a 4.9 meter long car uh the model x is over five meters long uh but yet the model x is a lighter car and so is the the jag i-pace let's not forget this is a steel car that's nearly two and a half tons 2490 kilos it's a heavy whop of a car which is why I haven't driven it up back june because I don't want to dig it out I really don't okay because the e-tron is between q5 and q7 in size there's a lot of space back here for passengers it's a five seat car seats look familiar and that's because I think they're out of an audi a6 up here you've got the um the vents and then down there you've got a pair of usb sockets and a 12 volt fag lighter socket you've got a nice luxurious armrest and if I press that you've got a pair of cup holders which is always nice and a cheeky little here and here for you know things like pens that you've stolen from hotels or even a nutrition bar useful Abu Dhabi's got some of the flattest smoothest roads I know so I've stopped in the middle of a highway because it's deserted and I'm going to do are you ready we're in sport mode five four three two one 62 5.7 seconds with boost on in sport mode dynamic setting and I've turned traction control off because let's face it it's a quattro it doesn't really need it on a hot tarmac day like this but the more I sit in it the more I wonder why they made this car out of steel it just seems very odd when audi pioneered aluminum construction with the a8 back in the 90s of any car this would be the car that you'd want to make lighter bearing in mind that battery pack which lives beneath us here is 700 kilos with its crash protection and its enclosure and I realized that for 150 kilos more that's the same weight as Honda's first generation insight the whole car not just the battery pack the whole car is a heavy beast this guy's a heavy beast but the dash is gorgeous let's go and sit in the front the cockpit it's beeping at me because I've left it on got the seat adjusted to how I drive it so I've just been sat uh behind myself if you understand me this is a very pleasant place to be there's no doubt about it audi cabins are just plush and gorgeous and very well appointed you've got a 10.1 inch screen up here I think you've got an eight point something inch 8.6 inch screen down here the clarity of the screens is insane it's a bit of an acquired taste but all your heater controls your seat controls your climate and your your descent mode and everything and your nav is all touchscreen the only tactile button is this one which is your volume control for your radio and your station shift this is a sort of semi-floating pretty deep center console it's a chunky thing I've got you know my notebook in here which is large and my phone and there's two cup holders down here and there's even um there's even if you vertically stack it a place to wirelessly charge your phone just on the left hand side here so it's deep in there it's quite faffy but it's deep and there's uh there's two more usbs another 12 volt socket and there's another deep cubby in here so plenty of storage on the go I really like this part I really like this it's like a strange wrist rest even though you don't need to shift gears it's kind of what you do if you were shifting gears and then you've got your your shifter button is this aluminium slide so if I put my foot on the brake and I'll you just knock it with your thumb into reverse or pull it back into d or into sport and then press park on the side it's lovely brushed aluminium finish throughout and this has got little uh subtle led lighting here like a three-stage dash with with leather with really soft rubber and with ultra soft rubber here four spokes are on which I really like I admired that while I was driving with your trapezoidal same shape as the the front grille there's a lot of similarities between this and the Jag I would say in terms of your sort of double deck screens and that kind of thing there's no doubt that Audi do a beautiful dash you're never going to get bored of of this level of quality I do like the fact that the Audi intelligent navigation it'll know that I'm coming up to a roundabout or a junction and it'll start to pull back on the regen early so I don't even have to kind of instigate more aggressive regen it'll do it automatically that's something we're seeing more and more on EVs anyway and a car this heavy needs to it has to the screens have got that haptic feedback like the latest generation phones which does feel quite good because it's that halfway house between a physical button and a touch screen in terms of production is Audi confirmed figures for how many of these cars they intend to be able to build at the Brussels factory what what kind of quantities of cars well we do not of course tell the numbers that we see but you can easily imagine that we have an entire factory only producing e-trons it will just be just just e-trons out of the Brussels factory yeah and you might know that you can only run an efficient car production when you come close to let's say a hundred thousand cars a year so it is pretty clear that we do not calculate with 10,000 cars a year yeah because we want to earn money with those cars because otherwise the technology makes no sense absolutely and the the feedback that we get from the markets that we get from customers is that yes this is exactly what customers want to buy so we believe that this really will be a high volume product oh there's a lot and of course you've got your screens here for your mirror and that's the weird thing about the screen for your mirror is it's quite low you're looking down rather than you want to look more out than down but that's just a personal thing i still can't quite get used to them somebody mentioned to me earlier on when you're driving if you're a driver that likes your arm on your door like this guess what is going to happen in my eyeline for that side mirror it's my hand is my fist so i have to remove my fist or drop my elbow down to look do i need cameras instead of mirrors are they better my honest answer for me who is not a techno freak per se i don't just like the new stuff just because it's new i just don't really see the point of it i think it's just another thing to to put on your instagram stories and boast because there's a screen there and there's a screen there is it helping me not really the order books for this car opened almost a year ago i think yes yes um so when will you start have you started production of these yet or is that about to start we have we have started production okay production is running yeah and we will launch the car for the customers in the first quarter of 2019 the more i drive this the more i'm thinking i can't wait to digest this kind of drivetrain and tech in a more car based audi like the e-tron gt concept which is going into production later in 2019 that's the car that's going to get my juices flowing that's the car that's your proper quattro your proper driver's machine don't get me wrong this is a very well put together car the e-tron and it's beautifully finished inside i mean you cannot fault audi dashes for the finish and everything you've got your head-up display you've got your beautiful surfaces your brushed aluminium your lovely screens amazing clarity of you google earth but is it exciting i feel like bmw got in there so long ago in the ev game they came up with some beautiful radical content the decisions that the other germans have made mercedes and these guys audi to play it so much more conservatively in both looks and really propulsion i feel like bmw still leading the charge but bmw didn't decided not to build an suv they decided to go wild i've been driving this car now for nearly two days i've had a lot of seat time in it three rapid charges and what i think about this car is if you're an existing audi owner and you've never stepped foot into the world of electrification this would be a fine transition it's a really good quality car and there are so many aspects of the e-tron that i really like but i think as a full package when you put it against its peers it's just too expensive and it's just too heavy and the range just isn't quite good enough to warrant the price and i personally would want a car a little bit more involving to drive as a driving enthusiast and on that basis when you put it against the tesla x and you put it against the ipace the ipace is the winner for me it's a cheaper car it's a lighter car it has no worse range in fact slightly better on paper and it's a more engaging car and i think the quality is up there on the jag as well but you can't take away the fact that it's great to have another big player in the ev game and it's only going to get bigger as usual thank you very much for watching fully charged subscribe if you haven't already i'm sure you have and you can press the bell function which alerts you to every new video which we get on the channel that me and robert make uh also patreons thank you so much we say every time but you deserve it every time every single person that's ever contributed towards the show on patreon it is a it's massively helpful it helps this show do bigger and bolder features and that's what we ultimately want to do we want to make better bolder longer more in-depth features and stay out in front of the ev world so thank you very much i'm johnny smith thank you very much for watching