santaclarasurfer

We high-fived crossing the 1,000 mile mark in our Siam Beige e-tron last night jamming down Central Expressway with the sunroof open to the night sky and the stereo on blast.

Today we cruised out to the Pacific coast on the backroads, starting with 174 mi. in range, we hit Santa Cruz four hours later (after driving 45 miles, hiking the Redwoods and grabbing lunch at Wild Roots market) with 158 mi. range. Thank you very much manual regen!

This vehicle is smooth, composed, understated, powerful enough, and, in my view, if you can afford it, totally worth it. If I could share one essential observation after 1,000 miles it would be this, the e-tron is a total and complete pleasure to drive, every single time. (If I could share one more thing, it would be that discounts are popping up, at least here in the Bay Area, so, take a look.)

We were Subaru Outback and Mini Cooper owners looking to downsize the cost of two cars to one BEV that could pile in our two late teenagers when needed. We seriously considered a Hyundai Kona, and if you can find one to purchase (we couldn't) and it works for you (it was a tad small for us), you should strongly considering buying it. We were NEVER going to buy a Tesla for a few very solid reasons - the main one being the initials EM. So with my wife being a former very happy Audi owner and a huge fan of Quattro AWD and Audi interiors, we pre-ordered an e-tron and ended up buying it on the 66 month / 1.9% plan.

Here's why it works for us.

Commuting: Driver Assist and an electric drive train makes the pain of stop and go traffic disappear. My wife gives the e-tron an A+ for her 20 mi. daily RT.
Long Metro Area Trips: We have a frequent 160 mi. RT family visit and we have had zero worries about range, safety, or charging.
DC Charging: We've used EVGO DC 50kw chargers when needed. Easy peasy. It works and it's quick. 150 kw will only make this easier. (90% of our charging is at Level 2 Chargepoint stations.)
Day Trips/Nature: Having driven in SILENCE on a morning mountain road, sunroof open, and the car floating around turns, there is nothing quite like this I've ever experienced in a car. This is a beast of a machine in the outdoors.
Dining Out/Sunday Drives/the Mall: The e-tron hits the right notes in a quiet way. It holds its own around town.
MMI Screens: Like a new phone, you learn it and it becomes second nature. The integration between the three screens and all the other touch points is actually quite well done. I'd even take more functionality, tbh.
Interior: Super comfortable, super quiet, with a well-executed sound system. For those having issues with two different driver identities (we don't), my best advice is to just learn to do things the way the car was designed to do them. (The arm rest slides forward, btw, and the shoulder belts are adjustable.)
19" Aero Wheels: B+ for functionality, they work and make for a super comfortable ride, D for appearance, wtf was Audi thinking? Bottom line, we don't regret them, others will hate them.
Exterior: Nice, understated. We thought Siam Beige was the best of what was offered, but had plenty of second thoughts. It's actually a really cool color and subtly different all the time. The lighting profile is truly excellent and functional/safe too.
Apartment living: We live in large apartment complex in CA. There are more than enough chargers here and at my wife's work. It's not impossible to drive a BEV and have no dedicated charger. In fact, we don't and don't plan to.
Pre-ordering: We would do it again. Everything worked fine for us. I would recommend.

Green Note: This EV is super heavy. Realistically, BEVs this heavy are not the future of EV or green personal vehicles. (Nor are the other super heavy EVs out there, let's be honest.) We bought ours, with open eyes, because we wanted to be done with ICE vehicles.

Nifty trick 1: driving in normal mode, then tapping the Drive level once, moves you to Sport on the freeway in an instant. I don't use this much, but it's super useful and pretty cool.
Nifty trick 2: you can drag waypoints when route planning, just tap the button with the line marker (but not when vehicle is moving.)

BlackOptic

Nice post! Thanks. I agree that a TT sized BEV would be a great way to get one or two people to places we need to go (for me, the airport)...

But, I’ll take the e-Tron. It’s not as bad to say “I drive an SUV” if it is electric powered!

eTron75

Quick question on complimentary charging - I believe Audi has free 1000 Kwh of charging at Electrify American stations within the first 4 years of ownership - have you used that?

WetEV

Yes, I've used complimentary charging at EA stations. 105kWh so far.

The Audi app is needed to start the session. I started the app, typed in the station id number, plugged in the etron, then picked up the phone and clicked start charging.

The Android app didn't work the first time I tried it. Uninstalling and re-installing the EA app seemed to fix this. Nothing else I tried worked. I had the EA app installed as I've used EA chargers with the LEAF.

Tronification

One could not overstate how awesome user-controlled regen is vs an always-on implementation like the one in the Tesla. Being engaged by the brake, the max regen is also quite a bit stronger, something you have probably already noticed driving around that type of terrain. Truly excellent, i.m.o.

Spideymd

the manual regen on my Volkswagen egolf has four modes. I always drove with the highest regen mode (“B”). I loved it. The e tron sadly is nowhere near that strong. I have the regen now on automatic instead of manual. Have tried both but don’t find it as strong as my egolf. Haven’t really compared it to a Tesla.

WetEV

As a long time LEAF driver, my view of the etron's regeneration is mixed. What I like is the default driving is with all the regeneration on the brake pedal, and none on the go pedal. On the other hand, there are situations where I'd love to have one pedal driving enabled.

santaclarasurfer

Ok, less language this time!

At 2000 miles, we are still super happy with this vehicle. We still rarely need to charge at home at our apartment complex if my wife charges to 80% at work on a Friday.

We did not Level 3 / DC charge at all between 1000 and 2000 miles. For all the discussion of range/DC charging, that's something to think about!

A few more things I've noticed:

• Overtake / merge into traffic on the freeway is seamless, the vehicle has so much acceleration available when it is already at freeway speed that you can merge/overtake with no worries, and that's not really bringing up Sport/Boost
• Lane Keep / Cruise Assist has been working great for me at freeway speed. (My wife does NOT use this as much for 60mph+ driving.) I get really good mileage, less stress and have had a good experience cruising for 10-15 miles @68-71 mph in traffic flow with no worries. Also it is great to set the follow distance to a longer,safer amount. It works very well and it is just so much safer than cruising in the tailgate zone.
• We got the rubberized floor mats and they are worth it and still look stylish
• We loaded the cargo up a few extra times the last month for work events and travel and the cargo space and configuration delivers. Zero problems, plenty of room.
• This thing remains a pleasure to drive for all the varied tasks we ask of it. That's the one huge takeaway.
• There's also lot's of subtle ways that this is a cool car without it really being a "cool car." Can't quite put my finger on the why/how of this, but it's true. The full on side profile at night when you unlock/approach is pretty sleek, for one.
  
• One more nifty trick: you can drag the chiclet squares in the MMI top screen so that the squares move around. (Bet you didn't realize that.)