Audi e-tron SUV 2018/2019
Discussion
caseys said:
I'm not that impressed really. Probably a nicer thing to sit in and drive than any of the Tesla's but 248 mi on the WLTC (likely with a set of very favorable coast down figures for the dyno) and 95kWh battery doesn't look great. Knowing the WLTC quite well I wouldn't be surprised to see that be closer to 200 in the real world and thats before you think about just charging to 80% to save battery wear.And it'll plummet further still if it gets driven like the usual Audi SUV does in the UK. Its a hefty 2500kg as well. 4 up with some luggage you'll be nudging on 3000! which wood, leather and thick pile carpet Bentley Mulsanne territory.
Likely still fine for 99% of peoples driving, but for the money, just feels like it could have been better on that front.
For me, this trend toward SUV/CUV doesn't gel too well with making an efficient EV.
Otispunkmeyer said:
For me, this trend toward SUV/CUV doesn't gel too well with making an efficient EV.
Unless your Hyundai/Kia, the Kona and Nero are by far the most efficient EVs around.Its hard to believe but the Audi looks even less efficent than the iPace, which currently wears the crown of the least efficent EV on sale today.
£70k+ is double what Hyundai/Kia are charging for a car with more real life range. But that badge on the nose is worth its weight in gold, many folds. For most thats the most important bit of a car, everything else is secondary.
The shame of telling people you swapped your diesel Audi for an electric Kia......
gangzoom said:
£70k+ is double what Hyundai/Kia are charging for a car with more real life range.
The Hyundai and Kia are much smaller cars than the Jag and Audi. Nor do they have the same quality of trim and finish. Yes, the Koreans are clearly doing something better with efficiency (300 miles out of a 64kWh battery, rather than 250 out of a 90ish kWh battery), but that advantage won't last forever.I know range is a big factor for EVs right now, but it's going to quickly become an irrelevance. My Volvo does about 400 miles on a full tank. 400 miles will be standard range for most EVs in 2-3 years time
Edited by Witchfinder on Monday 10th December 18:40
Range is a funny thing.
If you never go more than 200 miles in a day it's irrelevant with the audi.
The audi will charge up very fast too for those longer trips.
So for many /most it's not a real life issue.
Oddly it is for me because I do 400km plus round trips to places without any charging at night in winter.
If you never go more than 200 miles in a day it's irrelevant with the audi.
The audi will charge up very fast too for those longer trips.
So for many /most it's not a real life issue.
Oddly it is for me because I do 400km plus round trips to places without any charging at night in winter.
Witchfinder said:
It's not just range, but efficiency. The "premium" cars are clearly using more energy per mile than the Koreans. Electricity may be cheap, but it's but so cheap you'd ignore a two mile/kWh deficit.
Honestly dont think someone in the market for a £80k SUV will be worried about what a 30k one does for running costs. It'll be cheaper to run than the equivalent petrol/diesel ones in the same market segment.Witchfinder said:
It's not just range, but efficiency. The "premium" cars are clearly using more energy per mile than the Koreans. Electricity may be cheap, but it's but so cheap you'd ignore a two mile/kWh deficit.
If you're okay with the range, the efficiency penalty you're paying (at the plug) for a big SUV is fantastic compared to the financial penalty (at the pump) you'd pay for driving an Audi Q7 over a Kia C'eed.RobDickinson said:
Range is a funny thing.
If you never go more than 200 miles in a day it's irrelevant with the audi.
The audi will charge up very fast too for those longer trips.
So for many /most it's not a real life issue.
Oddly it is for me because I do 400km plus round trips to places without any charging at night in winter.
I was thinking about this this morning and think it is a funny thing and more complicated than first sight.If you never go more than 200 miles in a day it's irrelevant with the audi.
The audi will charge up very fast too for those longer trips.
So for many /most it's not a real life issue.
Oddly it is for me because I do 400km plus round trips to places without any charging at night in winter.
Take this example from another thread here.
granada203028 said:
Come on Nissan where is this 64KWh Leaf?
My 2012 can barely do a round trip to Bristol airport now, 10/12ths to do just 36 miles and that's with the heater off for the outward bound trip
Presumably this is the 24kWh Leaf, but none the less, this is a car with a quoted range closer to 100 miles. He's using most of his battery to perform just 40% of that range and that is without nice things like keeping warm! I know the leaf is a worst case example due to no thermal management of the battery pack.My 2012 can barely do a round trip to Bristol airport now, 10/12ths to do just 36 miles and that's with the heater off for the outward bound trip
Here is why I think this illustrates the question on range so many coming from ICE have. So...
248 mi WLTP range. In optimal weather lets call that 220 miles. Now factor in that, to preserve the battery you might only ever want to charge it to 80-90% and never discharge it below 10% (I don't know for sure, but seems Audi haven't built in any buffer? The Kona/Niro supposedly have a pack size closer to 70kWh of which 64 is usable). So that is 176 miles (all things being equal). Then when its cold and the Li-ion cells don't work quite as efficiently and you run the heaters and AC and the car is actively warming the batteries? summer when you run the AC and actively cool the batteries? and when you're doing a constant speed drive at higher speed where the EV powertrain isnt as good as in an urban setting that is coming down further.
Granted, you'd still have comfortably more range than you'd need day to day. But then take in battery degradation over the years. 176 becomes 123 (assuming the 70% guarantee). Some of the above is less of a problem in places where the climate doesn't really shift. It removes a few variables for you, but for us in the UK we can have very cold and very hot.
This is all conjecture and theory of course, I won't argue that, but hopefully you can see what I mean. The issue being that the headline 248 mile range appears to be plenty on the face of it but if you start to take into account the technologies foibles (affects of type of drive, temperature, degradation, use of auxiliary kit) that headline figure can mask the chance that you could find yourself tight on juice on occasion further down the line.
Of course all those things I mention affect the ICE too, but seemingly it is less sensitive... we don't really see range or performance degradation in ICEs due to the nature of the fuel and they're that inefficient anyway that running the AC makes only small difference, running the heater is basically free and they perform better on highway as opposed to urban driving where EVs are brilliant thanks in part to regen.
but in summary, in buying an EV today you are buying into a car whereby its ability in terms of range is affected more readily by day to day things like weather and whereby the performance/ability you bought into on day 1 won't be there on day 1825.
Its operating goal posts are constantly shifting (and trending down), more so than with an ICE where you can readily expect that on day one it'll do 400 miles to a tank and 10 years later, will still do 400 miles to a tank.
Im sure as time moves on battery chemistry/technology will put paid to degradation. Or if it doesn't the ability to charge little and often will be markedly increased. We're still in the equivalent of the original iPhone today with EVs. There is going to be rapid and exciting change for the next 10 years easy.
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Tuesday 11th December 12:27
RobDickinson said:
Witchfinder said:
It's not just range, but efficiency. The "premium" cars are clearly using more energy per mile than the Koreans. Electricity may be cheap, but it's but so cheap you'd ignore a two mile/kWh deficit.
Honestly dont think someone in the market for a £80k SUV will be worried about what a 30k one does for running costs. It'll be cheaper to run than the equivalent petrol/diesel ones in the same market segment.As of today, we have charge points at work operated by Pod Point (I think). They're charging £1 per hour on 7kW posts. I had an eGolf earlier in the year when the posts were free to use. On milder days I could do my 70mi round trip OK but on colder days it was too tight for my liking given a lot of the drive is cross country where there isn't even chance of a granny charge! So I would reach work on about 50-60% SOC and to charge that today is about 17kWh to fill. At 7kW that is the best part of 3 hours. So £3.
For reference my Prius is currently costing me 10.8 p a mile (average cost over 6000 miles). or about £4 quid to do the trip. The Prius is a good car though, in terms of fuel.
Its not a huge difference, though you could easily argue 1 hour charge will suffice and then charge at home where its a little cheaper (about 80p per hour based on standard 12-13p/kWh) though this depends on work/time permitting to get back to the charger to move the car).
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Tuesday 11th December 12:50
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Tuesday 11th December 12:55
Otispunkmeyer said:
RobDickinson said:
Witchfinder said:
It's not just range, but efficiency. The "premium" cars are clearly using more energy per mile than the Koreans. Electricity may be cheap, but it's but so cheap you'd ignore a two mile/kWh deficit.
Honestly dont think someone in the market for a £80k SUV will be worried about what a 30k one does for running costs. It'll be cheaper to run than the equivalent petrol/diesel ones in the same market segment.As of today, we have charge points at work operated by Pod Point (I think). They're charging £1 per hour on 7kW posts. I had an eGolf earlier in the year when the posts were free to use. On milder days I could do my 70mi round trip OK but on colder days it was too tight for my liking given a lot of the drive is cross country where there isn't even chance of a granny charge! So I would reach work on about 50-60% SOC and to charge that today is about 17kWh to fill. At 7kW that is the best part of 3 hours. So £3.
For reference my Prius is currently costing me 10.8 p a mile (average cost over 6000 miles). or about £4 quid to do the trip. The Prius is a good car though, in terms of fuel.
Its not a huge difference, though you could easily argue 1 hour charge will suffice and then charge at home where its a little cheaper (about 80p per hour based on standard 12-13p/kWh) though this depends on work/time permitting to get back to the charger to move the car).
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Tuesday 11th December 12:50
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Tuesday 11th December 12:55
I think 70k will price most right out the water. It’s the only e-car that looks big enough for me to consider owning but why would I buy one over say a 35k a4 allroad to save a few pence per mile running on fuel? The base price needs to be competitive before any of this can be taken seriously.
Edible Roadkill said:
I think 70k will price most right out the water. It’s the only e-car that looks big enough for me to consider owning but why would I buy one over say a 35k a4 allroad to save a few pence per mile running on fuel? The base price needs to be competitive before any of this can be taken seriously.
The Kona and Niro are getting there. I know they arent as nice inside nor as large. Thing is, there's surely an element of the established brands wanting to keep the sales of the normal ICE/Mild Hybrids they've been developing. That development is expensive and they won't want people skipping over it for the straight EV just yet.Tesla dont have that particular problem, but they've yet to show they can make this fabled $35k model 3 yet. Its typical early days, early adopter stuff. The kit's expensive and it'll be nowhere near as good as what will be around in 5 years for half the money. I see no shame in waiting a few years before diving in.
Edible Roadkill said:
I think 70k will price most right out the water. It’s the only e-car that looks big enough for me to consider owning but why would I buy one over say a 35k a4 allroad to save a few pence per mile running on fuel? The base price needs to be competitive before any of this can be taken seriously.
I'm sure the Model X would be big enough, but then that's an eighty grand car. You're right, halfway decent EVs are the preserve of the rich still. It angers me that the mainstream manufacturers are dragging their feet; I'd happily compromise on range to cut my emissions, but I need a certain minimum luggage and passenger capacity. The Kona and Niro just don't cut it. The options just aren't there.a
holes like VWG are squeezing as much life out of their filthy ICE investment as possible. Meanwhile, the IPCC tell us we have around 12 years to prevent catastrophic climate change.Witchfinder said:
Edible Roadkill said:
I think 70k will price most right out the water. It’s the only e-car that looks big enough for me to consider owning but why would I buy one over say a 35k a4 allroad to save a few pence per mile running on fuel? The base price needs to be competitive before any of this can be taken seriously.
I'm sure the Model X would be big enough, but then that's an eighty grand car. You're right, halfway decent EVs are the preserve of the rich still. It angers me that the mainstream manufacturers are dragging their feet; I'd happily compromise on range to cut my emissions, but I need a certain minimum luggage and passenger capacity. The Kona and Niro just don't cut it. The options just aren't there.a
holes like VWG are squeezing as much life out of their filthy ICE investment as possible. Meanwhile, the IPCC tell us we have around 12 years to prevent catastrophic climate change.In any case there are far more effective ways of saving the planet than buying an EV.
Witchfinder said:
Edible Roadkill said:
I think 70k will price most right out the water. It’s the only e-car that looks big enough for me to consider owning but why would I buy one over say a 35k a4 allroad to save a few pence per mile running on fuel? The base price needs to be competitive before any of this can be taken seriously.
I'm sure the Model X would be big enough, but then that's an eighty grand car. You're right, halfway decent EVs are the preserve of the rich still. It angers me that the mainstream manufacturers are dragging their feet; I'd happily compromise on range to cut my emissions, but I need a certain minimum luggage and passenger capacity. The Kona and Niro just don't cut it. The options just aren't there.a
holes like VWG are squeezing as much life out of their filthy ICE investment as possible. Meanwhile, the IPCC tell us we have around 12 years to prevent catastrophic climate change.ks based on garbage-in-garbage-out climate models. They've been saying the end is nigh in 5-10 years since they started and we're still here. Really, I don't think they are so bothered what the science actually is, they are using whatever they can to try push the world down the road they want (i.e. the whole 97% of scientists claim, really was pretty tenuous when you dug down into it and a lot of the temperature databases used for modelling have all sorts of issues such as poor spatial resolution, poor measurement accuracy and constant corrections by algorithms). I am not a climate change heathen, but some of the research around all this climate change stuff just isn't very good. For me the move to EV is for better air quality (you only need to visit places like Beijing and Hanoi for example to see how bad it can be) and for better use of energy. Even a modern car will only have circa 20% tank to road efficiency on an fuel energy in - mechanical work out basis over a typical real driving emissions test (90 min test). We're throwing away 80% of the energy in the fuel! practically criminal.
It only makes good business sense to for VW et al to maximise their return from their sizable investments. MQB platform cost them 50bn euro. Its not pocket change to develop a car platform these days and to do it properly takes the best part of a decade. We just have to be more patient unfortunately. Thankfully, I do think the whole diesel scandal in the US has rather strong armed them in to being a bit more proactive.
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Wednesday 12th December 11:17
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