2023 Audi E-Tron | Run From Gen 1?

The Audi e-tron, and because this is Savage Geese, this car has already been out for three years. In fact, it's already been refreshed, but this is our first time covering it. So prepare yourself, as we're going to do our best to give you as much technical information, despite our reps giving us no information at all. So let's talk about the interior space first. The e-tron, when it was introduced in 2019, was Audi and VW's first mainstream luxury EV. When it comes to the footprint of this vehicle, it's about the same size as an Audi Q8, which is a coupified SUV. So the rear seat's down, it's about 60-ish total cubic feet of cargo capacity, and the rear seats are actually quite roomy. Because this is an SUV, it has an overall sense of airiness to this vehicle and usability, and that is by design. When Audi was trying to figure out what to make their first mainstream EV, they spoke to their customers, and you guys answered they want an SUV. So that's what you get. You're looking at a as-tested price for this fully-loaded e-tron of $82,000, which makes it very, very expensive. The one thing to note about the rear seats is while they do fold flat, they don't have any real tilt function to it. So if you're going to try to accommodate a wide variety of body types in the rear, that's something to look at ahead of time. The cabin is fairly airy. You have a lot of you're probably hoping for in an SUV like this, and because technology has moved on from 2019, a lot of this interior technology is fairly commonplace. You've seen in a lot of the other MLB Evo products. So you get the two screens in the interior section where you get a top infotainment screen. Your bottom screen is HVAC controls. You have an all-digital gauge cluster. At this price point with these options, these seats are heated and cooled and massaging. They're very, very good. So Audi's found a good middle ground with this cabin space. It's also very quiet. It's far quieter than a Q5 or Q8. You can thank the battery packs for that. It's a very, very isolated driving experience. You can be doing like 80 or 90 miles an hour and your passengers will be thinking you're doing 45, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you are. But with that, I think it's time for us to head in the shop and put this thing up on the lift. Mark, we're underneath the Audi e-tron. This is built on a mix of MLB Evo when it comes to suspension architecture and their first ever dedicated EV platform. At least that's what Audi will tell you. I thought Audi told you this is all new. Well, if you look at the front and the rear and the suspension componentry, I can tell you that's not entirely true. It has multi-link front. It has air ride. Everything's aluminum. And in the center of this thing, you had a 95 kilowatt hour battery pack. It has like 36 modules and 12 cells per module, something along those lines. Yeah, this is the biggest pack they make for this kind of retrofit architecture that they're doing. Their prismatic cells from either Samsung or LG, depending on the pack size. And most manufacturers have multiple battery suppliers just as a cover your ass method. This battery pack and the charging control module allows this 400 volt architecture to charge from 10 to 80 percent on a full DC fast charger up to 150 kilowatts to like 30 to 35 minutes depending. But the good thing is if you look at the charging curve from 10 percent to 80, it's almost like ruler flat. So it really will maximize that DC fast charger and then it just falls off a cliff like most. So in terms of battery charging software, they did a good job here. The one thing that hurts this, though Audi might disagree, is the total range, particularly as this is an older EV at this point. This was first introduced in 2019. You're looking at like 220 ish miles of range. And when it gets colder, I can guarantee you that will drop. Well, Audi claims that 99 percent of people's driving typically is below 50 miles. That may be true for Germany and the coast, but in the Midwest, maybe doing over 100 miles a day, which does speak up as the big argument, especially on this channel. We have people that come on here that are big advocates that we're not looking at it from the perspective of like the reality of the way people really drive. And I would counter that and I continue to counter that, especially when we talk to people from California. They're like, oh, you know, this is the future. This is the future. I'm like, you have not left your area. We travel to multiple states and we don't have charging infrastructure in the United States in 2022 or 2023. So, you know, our normal commutes, like to go through our day's route is 100 miles. We come here to the shop and plug in the charger, which is, you know, 240. And it still takes you eight hours to charge this thing. So you're constantly going to have to plan your day around charging this one way or another. If you are a busy person and in an area, unlike Cal and California that has that infrastructure, it's just, this is. Becomes more challenging to say the least. Yeah, that's all I'm going to say. Sorry, man. No, my argument about this kind of product, particularly now that this is older and why I say they're disposable often is not the car itself. I'm sure live a 10 year, like 10 year life. No it's the technology itself. You look at EVs that have come out just recently. A lot of them are pushing over 300 mile range where you're stuck at 220. And depending on who you are, that's a big problem. Particularly when you bake into the fact that this is an $80,000 car. The reason why you're paying a lot of money for a luxury product is you get the latest and greatest tech in this, quite frankly, from a longevity battery life or battery range, forgive me, but just doesn't have it. When it comes to overall output, you have two different figures. The realistic figure is 355 and 410 foot pounds of torque. There's a boost mode where it brings the torque up to 490 and horsepower to the low 400s. But I think it's enough about that. Obviously this has Quattro and all that other fun stuff, has region brakes, which means yes, you have six pistons in the front, but it's using the electric motors primarily to slow you down. The consumable cost goes down. It's big and heavy at 6,000 pounds. And this is dual motor only? Yes. Okay. So, but with that Mark, I think it's time for us to take this for a drive and really talk about the dynamics of the vehicle. Sounds good, Jack. We're in dynamic, Mark. You're ready to feel a e-tron boosted start. It's like somebody flipped the light switch on, dude. That's quick. I mean, I guess, isn't that what you're supposed to say with every EV, you know? I mean, it's like the same feeling every car. As we sort of alluded to in the shop segment, and I was definitely going to talk about it on the final thoughts, now that EVs are becoming more and more commonplace, it's hard to make any of these stand out without crazy gimmicks or ridiculous performance or anything like that. The last four EVs that we've had, if you closed your eyes, you wouldn't know what car you were in with what you just did. There's literally no difference in terms of character, feel, all of that. I think that's the risk that these companies are facing, and even more so now as more and more companies start to adopt the same type of technology. I think the thing that Audi has done well, and it's also somewhat to this vehicle's detriment, is it feels remarkably similar behind the wheel minus the lack of like a traditional drive train noise and jerkiness. It feels like a Q5 or Q8 or Q7. I was going to ask you, just sitting here, what's the difference between a Q5 and a Q8? Honestly, like it feels in terms of interior-wise. I mean, honestly, I mean the Q5 is the less premium of the two, so this is more similar to a Q8, but I mean the main difference behind the wheel of this is it's quieter and that, you know, less NVH makes its way into the cabin of the vehicle. That's due to the fact that there's a 1,400 pound battery pack underneath you absorbing a lot of that noise, and to me that's really the advantage this has over its internal combustion counterparts. You know, if you live in a country where you need an EV or you're taxed up the ass for having an internal combustion engine, then yes, this is not a huge step forward or really a step backwards as well. It's a good like similar-ish performance and usability as an internal combustion Q8 with obviously the lack of range. So to me, this really just now that I've seen some of the engineering stuff and I've talked to you about it, this very much is like two-fold a compliance car and also an engineering exercise to see what they could do at the get-go of like retrofitting and, you know, an EV battery pack and drivetrain and all the control units to a traditional platform that they had for future vehicles, and that that's what this feels like to me. It really does when you think of it that way, it's like, okay, we did it. Yeah, particularly two or three years later. Yeah, I mean, that's the reality is this is now an older EV. They made it work. I mean, if that's what they set out to do from a technical perspective of like, okay, we did it. We turned this platform into an EV platform and nobody's going to know any different. That's what they did. But it definitely feels like a generic soulless, you know, luxury box. In many cases, it's does not stand out in any other way from its competitors. I will say though, compared to the Koreans, because a lot of people go the GB60, the GB60, what this does better than the Koreans is it doesn't have gimmicky styling. Dynamically, like handling wise, it's still an Audi product on MLB Evo, which is a very well thought out suspension architecture, like no weird body movement. It absorbs bumps really, really well. It doesn't have a bobbling effect and it puts all of its power down. So, but this is what you already expect from an Audi product. So, if you're coming from that Q5, Q8, you already have the expectation for 80,000 or whatever, you're expecting it to do those same things. That's what I said. They did do that, right? They just put an EV drivetrain in it and made it work. So, I don't think that's going to be enough long-term from my perspective, if this is not a compelling package over their internal combustion vehicles at this point. Yeah, and in 2019, when this was the first modern Audi EV and there was nothing else out there, this was great. Today, there are a lot of competitors now. Lyric, GV60, i4, iX. There's about a billion different EVs now. So, it's hard, right? It does the Audi things well. Ride, comfort, interior, refinement, styling. Yeah, body control, suspension. That's what Audi is known for. I mean, that's all here. I think they've carried it over. I don't know, man. It's going to be interesting seeing, it's interesting in one case because I heard one of their PR, like, marketing bullshit things, like, we've evolved from the steam engine to the next generation in just a couple years, you know, and okay, this was three years ago when this came out and it's already dated. So, I mean, it is, to your point, very smartphone-like. We're in a smartphone era of electric cars and as long as you know that and if you're okay with that, buying an $80,000 box, you're probably going to like it. Yeah, and what you mean by that, to elaborate on that point, the smartphone disposability of these products is, again, it's not that these things are going to be junk boxes in five years, but the technology's moving so fast and you're paying such a premium that in five years, you still want to be stuck with your $80,000 vehicle that gets 225 miles of range, where the next version of this will get four, 500, you know, high 300-mile range and be faster and have, you know, faster charging speeds and all the things that you're hoping the future is going to bring. So, these current products are going to be obsolete. Yep, sounds good. I mean, same broken record from every one of these cars that we've been talking about. Yep, so with that, Mark, let's head into the final thoughts. Sounds good, Jack. Final thoughts on the Audi e-tron SUV. So, what's good about this thing? It's quiet, it's comfortable, it's an extraordinarily refined vehicle. For a modern EV, it's not ugly, the interior is gimmickless and it feels like a fairly normal vehicle, which is exactly what you want in an $80,000 car. Not to mention the fact that, of course, it's fast and all that other fun stuff. The problem is, now in 2022, moving to 2023, there are a lot of EVs that do a lot of this for less money and have more range. The Lyric, while it is nowhere as fast as this, it's way more range, it's 300-mile range, it's every bit as quiet, the interior is every bit as good, and you can argue about the exterior styling, and it's just as usable from a cargo perspective. The GV60 is less money, does a lot of the same thing that this does, and there are becoming more and more EVs on the market. So, when you look at this thing at $80,000, it's tested, you look at the range, and you look at what you're getting, you have to really love the e-tron and what Audi is offering to cop up that kind of money, and that's all I'm going to say. Thanks for watching, hope to see you soon.