Top Gear Asks: Is the Audi Q4 e-tron is Worth the Money?
When luxury cars share platforms with less-expensive models, the question becomes, does the upscale version justify the extra cost?
While badge engineering likely reached its nadir during malaise era Detroit, the practice is still very much in use today. For example, the Porsche Taycan and the Audi e-tron GT are built on the same platform, and the Q4 e-tron shares its all-electric underpinnings with less-tony corporate cousins like the Volkswagen ID.4 and the Skoda Enyaq iV. So savvy buyers are generally going to ask whether the more expensive version is worth the money — and that’s the question that Top Gear’s Ollie Kew sets out to answer in this new video.
Kew starts his investigation by looking at the styling — including the LED lights on the e-tron GT’s front fascia — before climbing into the cabin. As you might expect, this is where some of the more pointed observations begin. Because while he complements the Audi’s razor-sharp display and intuitive nature of the infotainment system, he also takes issue with the unnecessarily racy squared-off steering wheel, and the cheap-feeling touch-sensitive buttons mounted on it. In his observation, the buttons feel out of place on a vehicle wearing the Four Rings.
He also notes that the e-tron GT is heavier than its Volkswagen-sired sibling, which makes sense, as the Audi makes use of fancier cabin materials, and pays for that luxury on the scale. For those familiar with basic physics, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that those extra pounds make the ID.4 fractionally quicker to 60 mph than the e-tron GT. And while the difference isn’t enough that you’d feel it on the street, it’s still interesting that Audi’s designers didn’t make a few tweaks to the powertrain to compensate for the extra weight.
In my opinion, the lack of adaptive dampers is probably the biggest oversight Kew points out, especially because the Audi rides on standard 20-inch wheels, as opposed to the VW’s 19-inch units. Since bigger wheels mean less sidewall, and less sideway means a harsher ride, the omission means the Audi will not only be a hair slower than its cousin, but a little less composed feeling too. Overall, this is an interesting video covering an issue we’re sure to hear more about as the new wave electric cars fall under scrutiny. So give it a watch, and let me know what changes you think Audi should have made!
Photos: YouTube