Why we ran it: Audi’s inceptive performance EV is a class act, but what was it like to live with?
Month 6 - Month 5 - Month 4 - Month 3 - Month 2 - Month 1 - Specs
Life with an E-tron GT: Month 6
Grand tourer by name but short-legged by dint of its electric powertrain, this big, sporty coupé took much effort to decode - 20 September 2023
There will be a handful of Audi E-tron GTs out there logging some very silly trips indeed. Madrid to Bucharest; Aspen to Jacksonville; Wembley to Greenwich at 5pm on a Friday. Say what you like about often- evangelical electric car owners, but they do tend to be intrepid.
In fact, a subset is pathologically disposed to battery power even when the rest of us would be sourcing a diesel Skoda and fitting a second fuel cell in the boot. These pioneers enjoy a challenge, clearly.
In light of this, I won’t pretend our E-tron GT has done anything particularly special adventure-wise. However, it has, during the course of 8600 miles in our care, been put about. It has done trips to Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy. And when it hasn’t been abroad, it has been slinking about London, which brings a different set of challenges for a car not a lot narrower than a Lamborghini.
How has it been? The product itself has been faultless. Apart from the key fob mysteriously going into hibernation for a day or two, it has had no untraceable rattles, no reluctance to charge, no infotainment glitches, no strange dynamic quirks and not even any of those small user-experience quirks that over time will drive you insane.
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It would seem your journalists remain as blinkered as ever, indeed the first o e living in North London would fit right in with the neighbours. Without meaning to generalise these locations are where you will find copious numbers of German premium brands, usually all bought by those that know nothing about cars but are lead to believe that if it has a German brand badge it's must be good!
I have a Genesis Electrified G80, virtually identical in price size and purpose to the E Tron GT, and in terms of efficiency trounced the Audi, easily achieving 3.6 miles per kWh on motorway journeys. Also unlike the Audi it's infinaly better value for money, and doesn't have an interior as black as a coal hole.
Yet Autocar never make any mention of it when talking of cars in this sector! Which is even more daft considering there are only currently a few EV executive saloons on sale.
Stick a Porsche badge on it and it would be mentioned every week! As I say crummy blinkered journalism.
Do you think you may be biased/envious as you own a Genesis?
People who buy expensive German cars etc aren't worried about saving a few thousand pounds, probably got plenty of money. Enjoy your Genesis whatever that is and stop worrying about what others buy.
Keith, there's a full road test of the G80E here:
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/genesis/electrified-g80
The Skoda it is then. How can a car be called a GT with a range of just over 200 miles, be required to base its chosen route of a limited number of unreliable recharging stations which will take far longer than you have any wish to stop there? Early electric cars made sense when their brief was to be replace daily drivers, not exotic grand tourers. The day will come when that is viable, I am sure, but it's not now.