Discussion
SWoll said:
No issues with SUV's personally as the extra height and space over an estate can be quite useful IME.
Saying that though as most are bought by people who rarely carry passengers anyway (or small kids) I doubt the reduction in rear headroom and boot space will matter to them anyway?
The etron is huge car on the outside, with relatively small boot. Then they made the boot smaller.Saying that though as most are bought by people who rarely carry passengers anyway (or small kids) I doubt the reduction in rear headroom and boot space will matter to them anyway?
Each to their own, but not for me. One thing to drive an incredibly inefficient behemoth of a car, but it being barely fit to carry a family in comfort is a bit
to me.It might look OK compared to an X4, but I had a s
t today that did as well. To me it's a missed opportunity, as I think the A5 was one of the best looking "regular" cars on the road. I must be wrong though as everyone wants an SUV these days. And then they want it "sleek" and impractical 
. ds666 said:
In what way is it pointless ?
- Huge on the outside, not that big on the inside. - most inefficient BEV available
- disappointing real world range
- poor performance compared to rivals
... for starters.
I'm all for competition, but it's sad to see this is the best VAG can bring. A company barely producing cars for a decade and Jaguar do better. It feels like they made it to say: see, BEV cars aren't that good.
Edited by ZesPak on Monday 30th December 22:05
ZesPak said:
The etron is huge car on the outside, with relatively small boot. Then they made the boot smaller.
Totally agree, that's why we've gone for a Model 3 despite having 2 tall teenagers. It's the exact opposite of the etron and much bigger inside than you'd ever credit looking at it + the boot is huge with the extra storage well. dmsims said:
ds666 said:
dmsims said:
So make a pointless vehicle even more pointless ?
In what way is it pointless ?As someone who owns runs, I feel I'm in a decent position to comment properly.
I've generally always had a A6 or Allroad in the fleet, as a family car, and the Etron is much larger inside than both. Its sits 5 in great comfort, safely (quattro), with loads of legroom, and more than enough boot space for luggage or a dog, etc.
Build quality/ride, it's in a different class to Teslas, I-paces, etc. It has just about all the features you need as standard and plenty of options for those wanting other things adding.
I agree it's not as quick as some other EV's, but so what ? I think your missing the point. It's a vehicle to transport families in comfort, which it manages with great ability. It will still do 0-60, and accelerate at most speeds quicker, or as near quick as my 997GTS, so is hardly 'slow'.
Range wise, it does around 220-230 miles at present on a full charge, fully loaded (5 people). Not many people regularly need more than this, Nd when you need to charge enroute it does so very quickly.
I think it's a great car, as do my kids. It was a toss up between the Etron and a proper Range Rover and I'm glad I went with the former as does everything I want, and more, whilst doing my bit for the environment, whilst saving myself a small fortune in the process.
Having owned our i3 for a number of years, I love EVs in general and I'm certainly not here to bash any other brands or anyones purchasing decision. Tesla are putting out great product, I love the styling of JLRs I-Pace, and there are some great looking cars on the horizon. The more we see on the roads the better IMHO. But for some balance, after a few weeks ownership, we happen to be relatively happy with our eTron.
We did look at the Tesla M3 and whilst it is a great car and it massively appeals to the techy part of me, it is smaller inside (feels much narrower) and the rear space wasn't as good. So 'for us' (= the wife
), the M3 will replace our i3 as a second car when appropriate.
With regards to the boot, we were used to the massive boot in our Jeep Grand Cherokee so we were prepared to be disappointed. Yet the boot in the eTron, whilst not as big, is actually very decent and more 'conventionally' usable than other EVs we looked at. Being able to drop the middle seat independently of the others was a revelation when having to transport a bed 130 miles the other day, with the kids still sat in the back. This tipped the eTron in favour over the I-Pace (I know many of you will say the I-Pace has as much, if not more boot space on paper, but we weren't convinced after testing both).
In terms of range, yes it could be better (real life 300 miles would be nice, but isn't this true of all EVs at the moment?), but it isn't too shoddy either. I'd also argue it is probably more 'realistic' vs some other EVs with higher ranges at full charge that actually prove to be overly optimistic in real life use (vanity vs sanity?). In winter (my only experience of the eTron), I'm getting close to 190 miles range at motorways speeds and ~225 miles range on country roads for recent longish journeys (a bit of 70mph, a lot of 60mph, a bit of 30mph). This is easily 3+ hours worth of driving when most of us would expect to stop anyway. The only negative is efficiency does take a hit on very short journeys (cold weather related?) so we'll stick to using the i3 as per usual for these trips to the local shops for the moment. Overall, I'm very curious to see where these numbers go in Spring / Summer. Surely there's only upside from here?
We did look at the Tesla M3 and whilst it is a great car and it massively appeals to the techy part of me, it is smaller inside (feels much narrower) and the rear space wasn't as good. So 'for us' (= the wife
), the M3 will replace our i3 as a second car when appropriate. With regards to the boot, we were used to the massive boot in our Jeep Grand Cherokee so we were prepared to be disappointed. Yet the boot in the eTron, whilst not as big, is actually very decent and more 'conventionally' usable than other EVs we looked at. Being able to drop the middle seat independently of the others was a revelation when having to transport a bed 130 miles the other day, with the kids still sat in the back. This tipped the eTron in favour over the I-Pace (I know many of you will say the I-Pace has as much, if not more boot space on paper, but we weren't convinced after testing both).
In terms of range, yes it could be better (real life 300 miles would be nice, but isn't this true of all EVs at the moment?), but it isn't too shoddy either. I'd also argue it is probably more 'realistic' vs some other EVs with higher ranges at full charge that actually prove to be overly optimistic in real life use (vanity vs sanity?). In winter (my only experience of the eTron), I'm getting close to 190 miles range at motorways speeds and ~225 miles range on country roads for recent longish journeys (a bit of 70mph, a lot of 60mph, a bit of 30mph). This is easily 3+ hours worth of driving when most of us would expect to stop anyway. The only negative is efficiency does take a hit on very short journeys (cold weather related?) so we'll stick to using the i3 as per usual for these trips to the local shops for the moment. Overall, I'm very curious to see where these numbers go in Spring / Summer. Surely there's only upside from here?
ZesPak said:
ds666 said:
In what way is it pointless ?
- Huge on the outside, not that big on the inside. - most inefficient BEV available
- disappointing real world range
- poor performance compared to rivals
... for starters.
I'm all for competition, but it's sad to see this is the best VAG can bring. A company barely producing cars for a decade and Jaguar do better. It feels like they made it to say: see, BEV cars aren't that good.
Edited by ZesPak on Monday 30th December 22:05
it is big enough on the inside - seats 5 with ease when required .
Efficiency is largely irrelevant to us - range more important and that is more than adequate for our needs . We have had i3's for the last 5 years - the worst the range had the first one was 55 miles in mid winter . Even that never proved an issue for us so 200 odd miles in an e tron is a dream ....
Performance is poor relative to Tesla or i-pace it is still pretty quick for what it is .It is well put together and a nice car to "waft" in .
We could have had a model 3 but for some obscure reason it isn't a hatch back , which we need for our 2 dogs .
Is it as good as our i-pace - not if you enjoy driving and using the performance but on lease it was £300 cheaper than our i-pace and only £150 more expensive than an i3s would have been .
The problem with the ev forum is that people within the Tesla cult find it impossible to accept that anything other than a Tesla is the way to go when chosing an ev . It isn't a 1/0 choice you know .
ds666 said:
The problem with the ev forum is that people within the Tesla cult find it impossible to accept that anything other than a Tesla is the way to go when chosing an ev . It isn't a 1/0 choice you know .
I agree, as I said, I welcome the competition, I just wish they weren't so poor at it. As a former Jaguar owner I really wanted the I Pace, and in a lot of ways it's a good car but...ds666 said:
Is it as good as our i-pace - not if you enjoy driving and using the performance but on lease it was £300 cheaper than our i-pace and only £150 more expensive than an i3s would have been .
Here's where I think it makes sense. Here in Belgium both a reasonably equipped I Pace and E tron were at the Model S or even Model X price-wise.If there's a value component, I'm all for it.
I was on the verge buying the ipace, as it was significantly cheaper than the Model S, but they dropped the price of the model S to Etron/ipace levels, which virtually made them nearly irrelevant over night. Now I understand Audi and Jaguar dropped the price of their offerings between the Model 3 and Model S, where they make more sense imho.
Ah and yes, if they made the model 3 a hatch it would make a lot more sense. A decent EV hatch below i pace prices like the model Y will sell like hot cakes I reckon,
I don't want to bash on anyone who bought one, but the only people I know who did are former Audi owners who didn't look anywhere else.
To me it still feels like VAG should have done a better job on it. I also got really annoyed at their press conference, rambling about 20 minutes about how much electricity they could get in the car in X amount of minutes, while the number everyone cares about is how many miles you get in, something they mysteriously failed to mention anywhere. Mind you, this was all before I even contemplated the Model S.
dmsims said:
ds666 said:
dmsims said:
So make a pointless vehicle even more pointless ?
In what way is it pointless ?hucumber said:
It isn't pointless. The point of this vehicle is to make money for Audi. To assume its purpose is anything other than this is just daft. None of the talk about what it should be, what it should do etc is pointless. Its a product. Which people will buy, thus creating money for the manufacturer, thus making it not pointless. If it doesn't fit your criteria thats fine, but fitting your criteria isn't the point of this, or any other car
A remarkably modest percentage of car models actually make any money. Many are compliance cars, or halo models, or placeholders for future versions.It's highly likely Audi planned for, and are making, a loss on the E tron
I must say that I quite like the e-tron. I was in my local Audi stealership the other day looking for the Q5 PHEV, and they had an e-tron in pride of place. I thought that it felt more spacious inside for passengers than the Q5 - I need to be able to carry 5 adults in comfort, plus a big dog, and do a bit of light off-roading, so it would fit my needs pretty well. The only thing which puts me off for the time being is the lack of a fast charging network, but that will develop with time.
In contrast, the Merc garage didn't have an EQC on display, which probably shows how much they care about selling them.
In contrast, the Merc garage didn't have an EQC on display, which probably shows how much they care about selling them.
Witchfinder said:
It's a really good car, it just needs to get more range out of that thumping great big battery.
efficiency are this and the Taycans only real issues. It's a cascade effect. Low efficiency means bigger battery for workable range, bigger battery means heavier and larger vehicle which means less efficiency. Eventually your only body choice is a near Q7 size SUV with a huge battery taking up a lot of interior space.Or an E class sized 4 door outweighing a Cayenne that can barely fit an adult in the back.
Compared to an ICE fuel tank, the amount of energy in a ~100kwh battery is pitiful, efficiency is key with current battery tech.
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