Long-termers

LONG-TERMERS AUDI Q4 E-TRON

James Baggott has been living with the electric Audi Q4 e-tron for two months now and charging hasn’t always gone to plan.

Living with an electric car without a proper car charger at home isn’t impossible – it just takes some planning.

I’m two months into ownership of our long-term Audi Q4 e-tron, and while there have been a few teething problems keeping it topped up, it hasn’t left me car-less.

Well, I tell a lie, it almost did.

The closest I got to having a charging scare was over the Christmas period when I was visiting the in-laws.

We arrived with around 80 miles left in the batteries with the plan to plug it in using the three-pin plug cable and leave it overnight to top up while we digested some turkey.

The 305-mile range had been sapped on the long motorway haul from the south coast to the Midlands and there wasn’t enough left to make the full return trip.

The Q4 charges at a measly 3kw an hour using the home plug cable, if I’m lucky. At home I’ve seen it drop to as low as 1kw an hour. But on a good day it will get a full charge this way in about 30 hours.

The issue at the in-laws wasn’t time, it was the old building we plugged it into. While all seemed fine when I left it, when I went to load up the Audi for the return journey I realised the draw had tripped the electrics in the garage overnight and had added just 15 miles to the range.

I should have checked it, but at home I’d never had a problem.

This meant we’d be facing an unplanned stop at a rapid charger. This always fills me with dread. For a start, you never know if the one you planned to stop at is working, then you have to contend with the fact others might be using it.

But the BP station we planned to use had two working fast chargers, which added 60 miles of range in just 15 minutes.

Helpfully, you didn’t need an app to get these started, just tap a contactless card and away it went. The sooner all public chargers are the same, the better.

Frustrating as it was not to get a free tank overnight at the in-laws, the positive experience of using the rapid charger on the road has given me a bit of confidence to do it again.

There have been a few other irritating incidents with the Q4. One saw the key stop working and the car refuse to let me in. I have no idea why it did it, but after asking a man in Halfords for help (he couldn’t) I went back, tried it again and it worked.

In fact, I think there might be some electrical gremlins at work, because the multimedia system seems to restart itself every now and then, and on one drive flashed up a warning that I needed to get the electrical system checked.

I would have done, had it not been for the fact the warning disappeared when – you guessed it – I turned it off and on again.

Overall, though, I love the Audi. It’s got acres of space which has been put to regular use on my near-weekly trips to the tip (I’m house renovating, not overly wasteful).

The ride is a little hard, but I love its turn of speed, classy looks and the weird noise it makes at low speeds which make me feel like I’m in Tron.

Maybe now is the time to finally invest in a home charger to make my EV conversion nearly complete. Baby steps.

THE KNOWLEDGE

Audi Q4 e-tron Launch Edition

Price (as tested): £51,165 Engine: Electric Power: 204bhp Torque: 310Nm Max speed: 99mph 0-60mph: 8.3 seconds Range: 305 miles Emissions: 0g/km CO2 Mileage: 5,997

This month’s highlight:

Finding a working fast charger when it was very much needed.

OTHER CARS WE’RE DRIVING

Nissan Juke

Mileage: 12,427 The Juke has cemented its place in our affections after almost a year on the fleet!

Skoda Octavia vRS

Mileage: 12,729 The good times are coming to an end as the Octavia vRS is being returned to Skoda. It’s going to be missed, that’s for sure.