Q4 eTron or Model Y?
Foreign this is the newest ev from audi and it’s called the q4 e-tron so i’ll bet you can guess exactly where it slots in the lineup so thanks to audi milwaukee for letting me have a go the q4 e-tron that’s probably the first time i’ve heard the name of an electric audi and been like i know exactly what that is and where it slots and just as you’d expect the q4
E-tron slots above the q3 but below the q5 in size which makes a lot of sense since the q5 has always been a touch bigger than rivals like the x3 and the glc i think audi will sell a bunch of needs they’re the right size and more importantly they’re the right price the q4 starts at 54 000 which is four thousand dollars less than a tesla model y full transparency
This spec’d out prestige trim is 64 grand which is a couple grand over the tesla model y performance and if i’m honest this doesn’t exactly give you model y fighting figures sure it’s dual motor but it maxes out at 300 horsepower 0-60 is good for 5.8 almost 6 seconds and the range that’s 240 miles so this q4 then shines in premium or premium plus trim with some
Boxes left unticked however you know another thing that teslas do that audis don’t fall apart this feels like a luxury car this feels like an audi the build quality is exceptional there are no creaks there’s no rattles in the cabin here and the windows go up and down every single time i ask them to and not to mention i’d rather be sat here any day over anything
In tesla’s lineup the q4 genuinely does feel better screwed together it feels substantial and it feels familiar you can roll on the power and feel it build like an internal combustion car there are genuine differences between the drive modes and how they affect the manners of the car and the ride and cabin isolation is exactly what you’d expect from the four rings
Grab the crazy ev headlines that we’re used to seeing but this thing drives like something we’re used to driving nice it’s easy the steering makes sense the braking progression is good the ride is excellent the cabin is super quiet and refined and upscale it’s just kind of faultless so with that let’s step outside okay the audi q4 e-tron this is one of the first
Times i’ve met an audi electric car and knew exactly what was going on from just hearing the name now of course we’ve got the q4 which means it’s bigger than the q3 smaller than the q5 it’s also e-tron which means it’s not gas it’s not hybrid it’s electric so boom immediately i know exactly what it is there’s no confusion whatsoever so talking about this thing i
Think to do some housekeeping this rides on the same chassis architecture from vw group as the id4 which we got last year but i will say that this is better than the id4 pretty much everywhere which makes a lot of sense for it being an audi but talking about the way that this thing looks now the front fascia to me in this glacier white with the black optics the
Way that this suspect looks a lot like the rsq8 that international autos also has on there a lot right now but more specifically we’ve got a really short hood and that’s well it translates into the fact that you don’t have any frank storage not even a little bit like you would have from the e-tron or the e-tron sportback you know the other suvs that i think are are
A little bit bigger but there’s no front storage here what you do have is a grill but it’s really just kind of an applique it’s more of a styling component and i think it looks good it’s familiar it’s easing that transition into ev while still looking looking handsome and then down here of course you’ve got your four rings this is mostly well not mostly but it is
Entirely four well style but also your adaptive cruise and your radar detection here as well the badging is subtle you have this e-tron kind of embossed here and you have one on the back as well but other than that it’s very simple styling and that’s kind of typical what we’ve seen with audi you have some cooling for your electric motors and your battery pack down
Here the styling on audis is typically pretty simple elegant and very contemporary but their lighting package is really cool it’s a very simple led running bar here but you’ve got this audi rings there in the headlight casing which i think is just cool around the side we’ve got gloss painted wheel arches very nice 20 inch wheels this is the prestige so you get a
Specific wheel here it’s a bridgestone it’s a little bit thinner to kind of maximize that balance between grip and also minimize rolling resistance to get you the most range again we talked about 240 miles of range for this dual motor 300 horsepower variant this is the s line so it’s a little bit more aggressive we’ve got some nice wing mirrors here black accents
For your roof rails because this is black optics you open the door and you do have audi puddle lights which is pretty cool completely black window treatments and other black side blade down at the bottom which reminds me of our time in the porsche macan gts so it’s just kind of fun it’s a little bit more aggressive looking now the rear hip is flared a little bit
Here this is your charging door so you can plug in right here and then again you know 20 inch wheel in the back and then around the back pretty subtle spoiler at the top and then your black optics four rings q4 on the left quattro on the right it doesn’t say e-tron in a badge it does say e-tron embossed on your lower bumper here but again it’s body colored so
It’s subtle and i kind of like that again your tail lights are very very cool i love the design that audi’s giving you on the side here on the tail lights these days very sweet you have a diffuser style thing at the bottom overall i think the exterior looks very good but let’s hop inside okay getting in my favorite thing about the car i sit down i’m just on the
Seat now the screens have come to life it’s welcoming me i put my foot on the brake cars on the key is just in my pocket could be in my backpack purse if you’re a lady or if you go i guess it’s just kind of cool it’s just super simple it works the opposite way as well so if you come to a complete stop it’ll hold you there and then if you just open the door it’ll
Throw itself into park and if you get out and if you remove your weight from the seat it will turn itself off it’s impossible to leave this thing running it’s impossible for this thing to like suck itself dry of charge and i think that’s just kind of cool but then in terms of the actual design of this thing the cabin is is very audi it’s a lot of blacks neutral
Tones grays silvers but it’s very angular it gives you this feeling of like very modern very contemporary very technologically advanced it’s very audi in that sense however you get a pretty conventional mmi system which i personally kind of like it’s familiar it’s easy to use it’s all the typical audi stuff which which has always been great in the past i have no
Complaints about it you do have your virtual cockpit which is again spectacular we’ve talked about it in some of the other audi material or vehicles that we’ve driven recently now some of the less conventional more modern more you know super advanced stuff i guess you could say is things like your your touch control buttons on your steering wheel it’s not just
A touch you know button that you push and then you know your volume goes up you can actually use your finger to slide up and increase the volume or slide down they still work as functional touch buttons but you can slide that way as well that same thing applies to your volume knob on your center console here you just rest your finger thumb whatever it is on the
Little pad here and then you can just spin and it’ll increase the volume and then finally it does the same thing with your sunroof so you can just swipe back open up your sunroof swipe forward oh i want it closed and then wherever it is if you just touch it’ll stop which is just kind of cool i don’t know it’s kind of interesting and novel in the moment what i
Find myself using it a lot maybe i think the one that i would use most would be the sunroof if i’m honest the volume controls on the steering wheel i would probably just use normally as i would but that to be said if you don’t want to use the spinny volume knob on your center console here there is not a secondary physical knob you have to use it that way so if your
Passenger wants to adjust volume then you know they have to use use the touch sensitive spinny thing but anyway you do have nice things you have heated seats you do not have cooled seats which isn’t a shock to me although this is the prestige trim so maybe that would be nice but the thing that i want to talk about that kind of dominates my experience right away is
The amount of gloss black of course you have it for your touch controls on your steering wheel that’s normal but you have here on your door card where you would have your hand to like open the door by the door lever your whole center stack here with your drive select your start stop your gear selector this is all trimmed in gloss black there’s just a lot of like
High gloss shiny surfaces in here which i think will translate fingerprints a bit more than maybe i would like so just just keep a microfiber cloth in here one of the coolest things and i won’t spend a lot of time with it you have carplay you have android auto yes typical but you have an augmented reality or you can spec an augmented reality navigation system so
In a head-up display you can have it project on your windshield essentially where you need to turn which is just super cool we talked about some of the other audis at s8 that we were in use with the headlights to project onto the road where you need to turn it’s just really kind of cool now personally i probably would end up using google maps but that’s just me
One weird emission we’re here in a prestige trim throw it in reverse i don’t have 360 camera i have reverse camera and parking sensors and and that’s it and that to me seems a bit off but other than that i think the cabin is is very nice it’s it’s a it’s a nice mix of modern and new with also some of the familiar touches that we’re used to seeing now in terms of
The rear seat you actually have a surprising amount of room back there the q5 is typically bigger than an x3 or a glc so this actually fits and competes in terms of an interior space very similarly to like a bmw x3 which i think is really nice you have a big pano roof which is great you have a completely flat floor because this is a dedicated electric car so you
Have a drive line going through the cabin and then your trunk it’s perfectly good and i think that might be time to head into the final thoughts so the audi q4 e-tron in a straight fight on paper it will lose out to some competitors in things like power and range however we don’t drive on paper we drive in the real world and the vast majority of audi customers
Have a garage where they can plug and charge their car in every night so they’ll have full juice for their 30 mile daily commute audi drivers unless you’re driving an s or rs model aren’t racing between street lights either so the practical mix of style substance and dependability hit here with the q4 making a lot of sense to me thanks again to audi milwaukee for
Letting me have a go and we’ll see in the next one foreign
Transcribed from video
2023 Audi Q4 eTron – Better And Worse Than A Model Y By Downshift Studios
