2022 Audi Q4 Sportback E-Tron First Drive

 2022 Audi Q4 Sportback E-Tron First Drive: Is a Premium Badge Enough for New Competition

Platform apportionment is smart. It allows automakers after part the worth of quintessential elements throughout higher production volumes and expand the wide variety regarding fashions theirs odd manufacturers be able provide shoppers except massive investments. For decades, the Volkswagen Group has been a grasp regarding the platform-sharing game, the use of Volkswagen bits beneath Audis or Audi hardware underneath Bentleys, in accordance with odor simply two examples.

Platform sharing is the motive Audi at last presents U.S. clients no fewer than seven EVs—counting body and powertrain variants—while BMW currently has joining over sale then Mercedes-Benz one. Four over Audi's EVs—the E-Tron, E-Tron Sportback, or the extra robust S variations over each—are timbered concerning Audi's very own EV platform. The sporty E-Tron GT shares its underpinnings along Porsche's Taycan. And the modern Q4 E-Tron yet Q4 Sportback E-Tron usage the identical MEB structure namely Volkswagen's ID3, ID4, then the imminent ID Buzz.

You wouldn't know such searching at the 2022 Q4 Sportback E-Tron. Whereas Volkswagen's MEB cars bear a faintly futuristic EV side to them, the Q4 Sportback E-Tron (and the everyday Q4 e-Tron, because so matter) look reassuringly Audi in their sketch or execution.

Priced beside $53,895, consisting of destination, the Q4 Sportback E-Tron rolls concerning an MEB flooring whose dual motors outturn a mixed 295 hp yet 339 lb-ft regarding torque yet are fed by way of an 82-kWh battery up to expectation has a usable 76.6 kWh over storage yet an EPA estimated spread on 241 miles. Audi claims the 4,706-pound Q4 Sportback desire speed up beyond zero to 60 mph within 5.8 seconds yet is speed-limited to 112 mph.

Our top-of-the-range Prestige take a look at car, as brought Audi's high-end MMI navigation or Virtual Cockpit systems, connection LED form headlights, a Sonos auto system, and an augmented head-up display to the mix, retails because $61,495. It looks or feels less high priced than the larger, more robust E-Tron, Audi's forward all-electric car launched between 2018. That's in accordance with lie expected, due to the fact the Prestige is $5,600 more cost effective than the least luxurious E-Tron model. (Opting because the Prestige version concerning the everyday Q4 E-Tron, as has a conventional hatch/SUV roofline as a substitute than the Sportback's raked rear, will keep you a similarly $2,800. )

The strong information is so Audi be able edit measured plastics seem upscale (are thou paying attention, Volkswagen?). The grained enroll looks almost like leather, yet the dazzling fill regarding the dash appears like metal. Even the grand piano black appears kind of it belongs about a piano. It entire has so extraordinary Audi character, though—ominously—the interiors of each Hyundai's Ioniq 5 or Kia's EV6 give the Q4 Sportback E-Tron's cabin a pilot because of its money of terms concerning perceived quality.
This is no longer a knock towards Audi, via the way. Rather, it is an omen regarding what honest the Koreans hold become at that stuff.

Q4 Does The Thinking For You Left to its veryown gadgets of the absence self pressure mode, our German-spec Q4 Sportback E-Tron did a lot about the thinking because of the driver, looking forward to pace restrictions or junctions, automatically increasing the level regarding regen as ye strategy them while provocation ye after quote far away the throttle in conformity with limit pace and enhance efficiency—all whilst make sure ye stay between the right lane.

But salvo you are the DIY kind in the back of the wheel, each epoch ye start the Q4 Sportback E-Tron (you simply come in, do over on or select a gear; including the answer among you pocket ye do not have in conformity with grip the start/stop button), you will need to disable the lane preserving help according to end red then green lines out of floating in your area of imaginative and prescient between the augmented head-up display. This also kills the Invasive reactions through the guidance wheel to that amount redact the guidance feel truculent postulate you necessity in accordance with do some thing it Audi does not like.

You'll also probable need after play along the iii ranges on lift-off regenerative braking—low, medium, or high—or let the Q4 Sportback E-Tron clearly shaft so ye recover afield the accelerator. The tiers are activated via the paddles of the steerage wheel, though, confusingly, the connection paddle capacity less regen or the except paddle gives thou more. To accomplish the Audi sense more liquid on the road, we tended in imitation of depart the automobile of coast mode, yet the despicable degree of regen, until using of nappy stop-and-go traffic.

Beyond that, you'll also need to select Dynamic mode. This does not just make the Audi sense sharper and more responsive. It puts the propeller of charge, reducing the interventions beyond the electronic nannies.

What Dynamic also reveals, however, is so much notwithstanding its relatively stiff deceleration the Q4 Sportback E-Tron is not massively … dynamic. There's plenty regarding bear and decent puncture however younger adjustability into the chassis. The Audi feels indolent on turn-in and pushes so ye run according to power. Slow in, fast out; fast in, slow out—doesn't count number where ye try, the Q4 Sportback E-Tron stays stubbornly one-dimensional of its responses. There's no longer a store about feedback through the steerage wheel, and it would not punch outdoors over corners out of the posterior burden like mean dual-motor EVs.
The dual-motor Kia EV6 is more exciting to pressure quickly. So, too, regardless of its homey looks, is the Mercedes-EQ EQB.

How utility Is The Q4 E-Tron?

We included 700 miles through Germany and France in 5 cold yet windy days, a mixing of prolonged stints cruising at eighty according to ninety mph on the autobahn—including a speedy laceration in conformity with 112 mph according to verify its claimed most speed—plus crawling via strong traffic between towns certain as much Stuttgart or fast going for walks concerning calm returned roads through the Vosges Mountains. That's a demanding obligation association by way of EV standards.
The Audi had a wholly charged battery now we started, yet we eke out 250.7 kW of that upon 6 stops at cost factors before ending back at Munich Airport together with an indicated 26 percent over battery virtue remaining. A speedy back-of-the-envelope score suggests the Q4 Sportback E-Tron therefore aged a total about 307.4 kW according to cover 708 miles, who interprets according to 2.3 mi/kWh, or 77.6 mpg-e.
That's brief of the EPA's 100/89 mpg-e city/highway and 3.6 mi/kWh combined numbers, but as noted, we did not treat the Q4 Sportback E-Tron with youngster gloves. It does not count whether you're the use of gas then electricity, thy mileage pleasure vary: Driven normally, we might count on the Audi in conformity with consign close in imitation of its EPA-rated 241-mile range.

This handsome, well-finished, well-equipped Audi EV proves the benefits concerning board sharing. But it additionally reveals a downside. None about the MEB-based Volkswagen EVs we have driven so a ways have been mainly developing to drive. And neither, sadly, is the MEB-based Q4 Sportback E-Tron.