Audi Q4 e-tron Review & Prices

The Audi Q4 e-tron is a family friendly electric SUV that’s excellent to drive and has a posh, spacious interior. It's a really good electric car - and updates in 2024 made it even better.

It’s an alternative to the likes of the Tesla Model Y, Kia EV6 and Cupra Born. It shares many of its mechanical bits with the latter, as well as the Volkswagen ID4 and Skoda Enyaq, but it manages to dress them up in something much fancier – a bit like that one person in your friendship group who’s always better dressed than the rest.

The exterior design isn’t particularly fancy, but Audi has managed to give the generic family SUV silhouette some upmarket details, such as the chunky front bumper, large grille, and full-width rear lights with a cool light signature that dances around when you lock and unlock the car.

Audi Q4 e-tron: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 330 miles / 318 miles
Efficiency: 3.7mi/kWh / 3.6mi/kWh
Battery size: 77kWh (usable)
Max charge speed: 135kW / 175kW
Charge time AC: 13hrs, 0-100%, 7.4kW
Charge time DC: 28mins, 10-80%, 135kW / 28mins, 10-80%, 175kW
Charge port location: Right side rear
Power outputs: 286hp / 340hp

It’s lovely inside. Perhaps not as properly posh as some of Audi’s more expensive models, but quality nonetheless. There are lots of angles and direction changes in the dashboard design, and you get a large infotainment screen and a big instrument display ahead of you. There are a few cheaper materials lower down that hint at its Volkswagen roots, but nothing that should put you off.

It’s also really roomy inside, with those in the back seats particularly blessed with loads of leg and headroom. Storage is fine, with useful cupholders and big door bins, though the area under the armrest isn’t particularly big. It’s the same with the boot, which at 520 litres is more than most will need but still less than you get in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Skoda Enyaq.

Things improve again out on the road. The Audi Q4 e-tron is great to drive, because it handles bumps really well and the smooth electric motors make it a relaxing way to get about. It’s quick too, and while it’s not exactly hot hatch-fun down a twisty road, it’s possible to get into a bit of a rhythm. Visibility is a bit compromised out of the back around town, and the 21-inch alloy wheels on the top-spec car make it rather jiggly on broken roads, but complaints are few and far between.

There’s only one battery choice, but you can choose between two different motors with different power outputs, as well as rear- or all-wheel drive. Entry-level ‘45’ cars can go up to 330 miles between charges, so are the best option if you want to maximise range. That’s fine, but once you start looking at the lower-end of the claimed range figures or moving up the trim levels, range estimates drop below 300 miles, which is a touch disappointing.

Despite this, there’s a lot to love about the Audi Q4 e-tron. Sure, it’s not the most exciting electric car in the world, but it does represent fairly good value for money when you consider it’s a posh electric SUV with a lovely spacious cabin.

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The Audi Q4 e-tron certainly isn’t cheap. It starts at just over £50,000 for a rear-wheel drive model with the ‘45’ motor, and it’s about £2,500 to step up to the S line trim and another £2,500 for top-spec Black Edition models. If you’re looking for an all-wheel drive version of the top-spec model with the ‘55’ motor, prices start at over £61,000.

That means it’s a good chunk pricier than the Hyundai Ioniq 5 (starting around £40,000), and the Kia EV6 and Tesla Model Y (starting around £45,000). Higher-spec models start to get into the reaches of bigger, posher cars such as the BMW iX3.

The Audi Q4 e-tron is comfortable and easy to drive around town, but it's not a huge amount of fun on a twisty road

In town

The Audi Q4 e-tron is a great car to drive around town, because it’s quiet and refined and handles bumps really well. There’s a bit of jiggle, particularly on models with big alloy wheels, but on the whole it’s a comfortable way to get around town.

In its normal setting the accelerator is quite sensitive, so it can be tricky not to jolt away from junctions, but popping it into eco makes things much easier. The brakes are smooth and don’t suffer from the jerkiness you get with some electric cars.

Visibility is a mixed bag – you get a good view out of the front but the rear pillars are quite big and the rear window small, so it can take a double-check of your blind spot to be confident of darting out in traffic. Front and rear parking sensors, as well as a rear-view camera, are standard-fit, so reversing into a parking space isn’t as daunting as it could be.

On the motorway

Out on the motorway the Audi Q4 e-tron is a quiet and relaxing place to roll on the miles. The suspension deals with bumps a bit better at higher speeds, and there’s little in the way of wind and tyre noise.

Even the less powerful ‘45’ models have enough oomph to get you up to speed on a motorway slip road, or to pull off a quick overtake.

Adaptive cruise control is included as standard, but you can upgrade this with the Technology Pack Pro to include a lane-changing assistant. The head-up display and instrument screen show white arrows if a lane is clear, and if you want to change lanes you can press the indicator and the car will provide steering assistance to get you across.

On a twisty road

Chances are that if you’re looking at an electric family car, you’re probably not too fussed about how good its impression of a sports car is. As a result, it’s not a huge deal that the Audi Q4 e-tron is far from being one of the more fun electric cars you might consider – check out the Tesla Model Y or Ford Mustang Mach-e if that’s what you’re after.

That being said, if you don’t expect too much it’s perfectly capable of putting a smile on your face. The steering is quite light and you don’t get much feedback about how much grip the front tyres have, but the body doesn’t lean too much so you can get into a bit of a rhythm through the bends.

The rear seats are spacious, even for tall passengers, but the boot is bigger in a Skoda Enyaq and VW ID4

Space in the front is really good, and it’s easy to find a comfortable driving position. You don’t sit as tall as in some SUVs, but you can set the seat high to get a good view of the road ahead.

With the flat-floor, and the inherently greater space efficiency of an electric car, you’d expect just a little more space for odds and ends in the cabin. The Q4’s little lozenge-like gear selector switch sits on a panel that juts out from the centre of the dashboard, and while there’s decent storage beneath it, it does feel like the space could have been made more practical.

There are good-sized cupholders and door bins though, although the storage box under the arm-rest seems oddly small (this is an area where the Enyaq, once again, does a better job).

Space in the back seats

Space in the back is fantastic, with loads of room for your legs even behind a tall driver, and you’ll have no complaints about headroom unless you’re giving the local basketball team a lift.

The middle seat is also a little more useful than similar alternatives, and thanks to the flat floor there’s plenty of room for three to put their feet.

There are ISOFIX anchors for child seats on the outer rear seats, as well as the front passenger seat, and the covers for the anchors simply flip-up, rather than needing to be removed. There are also standard electronic child locks for the rear doors, which are very handy if you’re regularly carrying kids around.

Rear seat passengers also get decent door bins and seat-back pockets, but the cupholders in the rear folding armrest aren’t positioned ideally — they’re right where your elbow naturally goes.

Boot space

The standard Q4 e-tron has a seats-up boot capacity of 520 litres, which is less than what you’ll get in both a Volkswagen ID4 (543 litres) and a Skoda Enyaq (585 litres). Still, a flat floor and a wide opening makes it very easy to load up, and if you collapse the rear seats you’ll open up 1,490 litres of space.

There’s a little bit of under-floor storage, which is mainly for stashing charging cables, but can also hide valuables that you want to keep out of sight. But it’s disappointing that there’s no ‘frunk’ or storage space under the high bonnet — all that space is taken up by air conditioning and electronic control units.

The infotainment system is generally quick and easy to use, but the touch-sensitive steering wheel controls are fiddly

The Audi Q4 e-tron’s interior is a combo of posh-feeling upholstery, big, crisp screens and lots of aluminium-look trim that make it feel very upmarket inside. It’s certainly ahead of the Volkswagen ID4 in that respect.

The cheap plastics at the lower edges of the dashboard and on the doors don’t necessarily fit with Audi’s upmarket image, but those are largely tucked away, and overall the cabin looks and feels appropriately plush and upmarket.

You’ll breathe a sigh of relief when you see that Audi has kept proper, physical buttons and rotary switches for the air conditioning system – they are so much easier and more intuitive to use than the touchscreen-slider controls in the ID4.

Even the entry-level Q4 e-tron comes with an 11.6-inch touchscreen infotainment system with satellite navigation, as well as Android Auto and (wireless, if you’ve got the right phone) Apple CarPlay connectivity. There’s optional wireless phone charging too. You get two USB-C connections up front, and two more in the back.

It’s also now available with Amazon Alexa as the on-board assistant, allowing you to manage your calendars and shopping lists, as well as control compatible smart home devices via voice commands.

It’s all very slick and easy to use, which is good news because the mechanically similar ID4 and Cupra Born have frustratingly clunky infotainment systems.

The only downside is that Audi has decided to use touch-sensitive steering wheel controls, rather than physical buttons, and these are rather too fiddly to use, making it easy to select something you didn’t want, or miss the menu item that you were looking for. Sometimes, innovation is a bit too clever for its own good.

Elsewhere, an uprated Sonos audio system is available as part of an options pack, as is a wireless charge pad and a very impressive augmented-reality head-up display.

You only have one battery option with the Audi Q4 e-tron, which has a usable capacity of 77kWh. There’s two motor options called ‘45’ and ‘55’, with the former available with both rear- and all-wheel drive, and the latter not offered with rear-wheel drive.

The ‘45’ has 286hp and can go from 0-62mph in 6.7 seconds (0.1secs faster in the all-wheel drive model), while the ‘55’ has 340hp and a 0-62mph time of 5.4 seconds. Improvements to the motors for 2024 mean they’re more efficient than before, and we did see a slight improvement to 3.4miles per kWh in our time with the car.

The Audi Q4 e-tron offers an electric range of up to approximately 306 to 329 miles on a full charge, depending on the model and driving conditions. If you want to maximise range then the entry-level, rear-wheel drive ‘45’ model is the one to go for, with official figures suggesting 329 miles is possible. The ‘55’ car has a maximum range of 319 miles.

Fast public charging has been improved too, so you now have a maximum of 175kW in all-wheel drive models and 135kW in rear-driven models. The result is a 10-80% charge time of less than half an hour.

There’s no Vehicle Excise Duty to pay because the Audi Q4 e-tron is an electric vehicle, and this also means company car drivers get a bargain basement Benefit-in-Kind tax rate.

Europe’s independent car safety investigators, Euro NCAP, gave the Audi Q4 e-tron five stars, and that means more these days than just how well it bounces off a wall or a pole. It also covers assistance systems, such as its autonomous emergency braking systems, so NCAP thinks the Q4 is excellent at avoiding crashes as well as absorbing them.

Some extra assistance kit is available as part of the Technology Pack Pro – it’s expensive, but also includes some nice-to-haves such as an upgraded sound system and Matrix LED headlights.

Although Audi’s reputation for reliability isn’t great – in 2023 it finished 30th out of 32 in Auto Express’s owner satisfaction survey Driver Power – the Q4 e-tron has actually proved to be pretty dependable. It’s based on Volkswagen Group’s ‘MEB’ architecture, and aside from some early software issues it appears to be quite reliable across the various brands that use it.

The Q4 e-tron comes standard with a three-year/60,000-mile warranty, which is in line with most other premium car makers, but it’s also the minimum you get in the UK. The battery’s coverage stretches to eight years or 100,000 miles, at least.