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Post by Alanović on Mar 15, 2024 10:11:06 GMT
It's the camera door 'mirrors' which put me off the otherwise lovely Honda E.
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Post by EspadaIII on Mar 15, 2024 10:23:52 GMT
I think I could get used to them. I have got used to using my rear camera for reversing rather than the interior mirror, and the HUD rather than the dashboard for the speedo, so less eye-slicking to the outside of the car for the rear/side view and more glancing at an internal screen seems logical.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Mar 15, 2024 10:51:59 GMT
I imagine if it’s the only thing you drive, you get used to them. I’ve not tried but people who have report not getting such a good view, and them not being useful for parking, as mirrors are. I’ve also heard that Honda’s implementation is the best one, but nobody seems to like Audi’s. Their efficiency add is worth about two miles per charge, which doesn’t really seem worth the bother.
On the way to York at the weekend, I was watching cars (and vans; lots of vans) approaching in the lane to my right, and the way the interior mirror and door mirrors work together, so that I instinctively know when the other vehicle is about to disappear from one view and appear in the other. I’d explained to MrsB1 about the Polestar 4 and its camera — she was less appalled than I’d expected — and wondered if that was calibrated to seem similarly natural. I suppose, without bodywork to get in the way, the camera could give a view that overlaps into the one in the door mirror, so you never lose sight of a passing vehicle. The 4 will have the red blind spot light as well, to help with that. I’m generally less bothered by the idea of replacing the interior mirror than I am with the door mirrors.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Mar 15, 2024 15:38:43 GMT
I did call in at Audi Reading and was warmly greeted with “Good afternoon sir, what can I help you with today?”
No, don’t be silly, it’s an Audi showroom. Nobody even seemed to notice I was there. But the white e-tron was outside, so I had a walk around it in the incipient rain. So too was a newer, 23-plate Q8 e-tron Sportback in a nicer colour, two years younger and priced £20k higher. The Q8 version has some useful efficiency improvements but not much else to distinguish it from the 21-plate old-model car, so that’s a clue as to what those two years of ownership might cost.
It does look spacious, though - more so than the iX3. And it is a handsome car, even in white. Taller when you get close to it than its proportions suggest from a distance, but not full-SUV tall - about the same as the i3, I think. I could cope with the three-quarter view from this chair during the working week. Will see if I can be bothered to go all the way back for a closer look.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Mar 15, 2024 15:59:42 GMT
Whaaat ! You had the audacity to walk in off the street without an appointment and have an audience with an executive no less.
Begone prole and never darken our doorstep again with your presence.
Someone, somewhere will want to sell you a car. Did you arrive by propeller or silver arrow ?
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Mar 15, 2024 16:17:36 GMT
In the three-pointer, which is now back on four good wheels. I got a quarter-wave from the blokey washing the used stock. That was it.
Very wide parking spaces, I noticed. They know their clients well.
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Post by Humph on Mar 15, 2024 16:50:34 GMT
Yeah, they probably know that most people who want an Audi are unlikely to know much about cars or driving. 😈
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Mar 15, 2024 18:26:42 GMT
In the three-pointer, which is now back on four good wheels. I got a quarter-wave from the blokey washing the used stock. That was it. Very wide parking spaces, I noticed. They know their clients well. I wondered if they'd spotted the EV and run. Visited a fast food emporium this evening after my son's afterschool class. Usual suspects occupying two parking bays, a smallish Audi SUV and a Merc tank as close to the main entrance as they could get without blocking the entrance doors and a Ranger pickup at the far end of the car park.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Mar 16, 2024 18:46:38 GMT
Didn’t go back to Reading today. (Who does when nobody’s making them?) but spent some time playing with the Audi idea. It comes down to - Big enough. The e-tron does look like a nice thing to travel in: spacious, quiet and very well assembled. I would have no concerns about long-distance comfort or luggage space, even in Sportback form.
- Nice to have. A used one has something of the CLS’s champagne-at-cava-price factor — still not actually cheap, of course — and a distinctive style that would keep me from missing the Mercedes too much.
- Running cost. The purchase price needs to be set against relatively high energy costs, as the very best anyone seems to have got out of one is 2.6mi/kWh or about 240Wh/km. which takes me to…
- Utility. Or, sigh, range. It’s not really good enough, although it is a design from 2019, which in EV years is about as old as Humph. It would have required the same number of charges as the i3 on last weekend’s York trip, and wouldn’t give the option of a slow destination charge to save a motorway DC stop. (See also costs.) Not really what you want from such an accomplished long-distance cruiser.
- Oh, and I’d hoped the Sportback might have frameless windows like the A7. It doesn’t.
That’s not the end of it, though. The poor efficiency and higher electricity costs need to be set against the £10,000 it might save me over buying an iX3. That’s a good 60,000 Audi miles before the BMW even turns a wheel. And while the wheels aren’t turning, I have to look at the thing, which is certainly easier with the Audi.
So the boring summary is that it’s heart versus head all over again. (See also iPace, to which most of the e-tron mitigations I’ve tried also apply.) BPG has correctly identified that I like the iX3 to drive, and that it’s actually superbly engineered to be far better than the sum of its unpromising parts. It would do everything I want from a car — apart from giving me a cheeky buzz when I look out of the window at it or think of settling into it for a long trip.
There are two better Audis. The Q4 is a more modern design and more efficient even than the iX3. True EV packaging means it has enough space in a smaller body — arguably the ideal size for our new-normal needs — and a usefully tight turning circle too. I’d need to get inside one and be convinced by the interior, which relies on its ’Audi design’ rather than being a taste of the high end like the e-tron (and the CLS.) I’d still like something that feels a bit special.
And there’s the Q8 e-tron, which doesn’t fix the efficiency problem but takes it above the first threshold of usefulness. All I have to do is wait a year or two and my budget will buy one of those instead. I can already hear Humph recommending inertia. 🙉
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Post by Humph on Mar 16, 2024 20:42:26 GMT
Not for me to say of course, but, yeah, something like that… 😂
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Post by EspadaIII on Mar 17, 2024 11:06:38 GMT
I think the only major benefit of the Q4 e-tron over the VW or Skoda clones is the interior. The inability of VAG to produce a user friendly dashboard with illuminated HVAC controls is a monumental mistake and is one of the reasons I chose I5 over Enyaq or ID4. And the dealer didn't return my calls about the Q4 after I decided the proper e-tron was simply too expensive.
But if a Q8 floats your EV boat I can certainly agree it is a far better looking car than the BMWs.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Mar 17, 2024 15:28:38 GMT
The next iX3 will be on the NK platform, not until late'25, probably '26 for the UK. Being a BMW, probably looking at '27 before the prices settle down.
300kW+ EVs are the planet saving equivalent of running a V8 petrol Vs buying something that can do 80% of the job for 50% of the energy wasted. The sooner they start taxing EVs on horsepower the better it will be all round.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Mar 17, 2024 16:54:21 GMT
It will probably happen but there are a lot of worse offenders to deter first, all of which also create local pollution that the EV does not. The Etron’s problem (I’m tired of wrestling it into lower case) isn’t so much the kilowatts (although of course it will be if you keep using all 300) as the kilograms; Audis used to be relative lightweights but this one isn’t and it can’t all be battery. But I didn’t see one on this morning’s little outing in the i3 (although there were a lot of X3s about, and a few iX3s) which matches my ‘something unusual’ attraction to it. There was a fossil X3 parked near us, which stuck up noticeably above the various Nissans and Kias that the families and pensioners of Wokingham had brought to the country park. That’s 78mm, or about 5 percent, taller than an i3S and about 60mm taller than the Audi, although it isn’t as wide. The 630i GT that I thought might be comparable to the Etron turns out to be less tall than the i3. So yes, BPG, the Etron does seem an extravagant use of road space and, only by EV standards, energy. My not-so-inner sybarite still wants to try one, though. I may have to remind him of the revolting Costa coffee he had to drink last time he used a motorway charger.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Mar 17, 2024 19:45:09 GMT
Sadly for EVs, when road tax is payable in the UK you will pay the same for the Q8 etron as a VW e-Up!. Except you won't for the first 5 years because it's over £40k. Then again won't an Up! be the same as my Mazda6 2.5 litre engined car?
Road excise duty was fairer when it was based on emissions to get us into more efficient cars (diesel pollution aside). And I agree EVs should be taxed differently, e.g. based on efficiency or maybe weight. A heavier car will do more damage to roads.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Mar 17, 2024 20:56:17 GMT
I'm ignoring the comparison with fossil fuel as redundant. The days of ICE has been called.
Basing tax on EV weight is also a dead duck, batteries will get more efficient and lighter. We don't need 300kW + or 408PS+ in old money for everyday motoring. Yes, there will be people who choose that and manufacturers willing to sate that need. You can have it but you'll pay for it.
Taxing an e-Up! the same as something 2½ times the size, weight, performance says there's something else afoot.
Edit: There's a huge budget deficit to fill and charging 2⅐ tonne EV drivers £180 a year isn't going to cut it.
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