Audi A3 E-tron Forum and Electric Vehicle News

As an early disclosure, I sell Audi's for a living, so I knew this car very well before deciding to lease one. I came out of a 328i Sportwagon and this is my first hybrid.

I have the perfect setup for maximizing the fuel economy of this car and that is what I'm reporting on today. I live 16.1 miles from my dealership. So I made a heavy duty extension chord to go from my dryer's 220V outlet to the edge of my garage - giving me slightly over 2 hours for a full charge. Of course, I can charge for free at work( and get a great parking space too!). So I really only have to use gas on my days off when I drive more than 18 miles or so. At the 1800 mile mark I still have 1/2 of my second tank of gas left and my car is averaging 97.5 MPG since I got the car. I figure another few days of driving in the EV mode should get me over 100.

FYI, I have never gotten less than 17 miles on a charge, and that was one time when I was on the freeway, cruise control set at 75mph. Generally I'm getting 18-20 on a charge.


Interestingly I find myself driving much more relaxed in this car. Not that you can't rip around town in it, but the car is just so peaceful to drive that I changed my style to not always be in such a hurry. In my BMW I was always going well over the speed limit pretty much everywhere. Will probably save me the long overdue speeding ticket as well.

In addition to the great mileage I'm getting, I am really impressed with the supple ride. The suspension is a little soft for aggressive cornering, but for daily drive around town or on the freeway you really hardly feel bumps in the road at all. SO smoooooth!

I took off the US front plate and am going to order a Euro plate for it - should clean up the front end a bit.

Anyway, this car is an Audi through and through. That it happens to be a hybrid is an extra!

Clay Hollingsworth
Brand Specialist - Circle Audi
Long Beach,CA
2017 A3 Etron
Monsoon gray/Rock grey interior

Bearing in mind that all of my trips end with a 500' elevation gain over 1.5 miles to get up the hill and home, when the weather is not being unusually cold for this part of the county I can get a true 18 miles EV range around town. Recent weeks in the low 30s have seen that drop to 15 or so. Clay's range doesn't seem out of line to me.

This is the statement that I kinda had a hard time believing:

"FYI, I have never gotten less than 17 miles on a charge, and that was one time when I was on the freeway, cruise control set at 75mph."

Never gotten less than 17 miles on a single charge? I can easily get less than 17 miles without going past 50 mph on surface streets. I have to hypermile carefully to get over 18/19 miles of EV mode. Driving at sustained 75 mph will easily deplete the battery. The best I've ever gotten is 24 miles out of EV mode and that had an OBC estimate range of 27 EV miles at the start.

My experience is that the climate control (i.e. heat) has a pretty significant effect on range. I live 6.5 miles from work and can get a round trip on one charge (barely) in our cold weather right now 25-35 degrees F. If I turn off the heat while driving and just use the seat heater (not bad if you pre-heat the car ahead of time while plugged in) I can do a round trip with 3 miles remaining on the battery.

I seem to get about 14-15 miles in the cold. It was -10C(14F) yesterday and I managed 14 miles (22km) with heater off, but seat warmer on. I did warm it up before I left, and the speed was around 55km/34mph flat roads, hit all the lights. Fortunately, that is 2-3 miles more than my commute to the train most days. In the 10 days I had it before I went on the 2500 km trip, I was at 75% electric after 750km.

Ok just went back out again to pick something up. Had a full charge, warmed up for 3 mins before I left, 40km gom, -10.5C, drove 21km, road is flat, speed limit is 50km/h, drive around 57 max with a figurative egg under the pedal when starting and anticipating and really coasting to stops. seat warmers on, cycle the heat on and off to keep it comfortable, steering wheel heater on. Still had 9km of range when I got home. That is just over 17 miles electric in the cold. I do have to watch the start/stop to achieve that, keep the speed down and make sure that I turn off the heater when the car is warm enough.

I have had much the same experience, the heater, even when set to low, has a very significant impact on millage. I've tried to minimize using it, but need to for defogging the windows. Today was fairly warm out, +2 degrees C, and for the first time I made my 28km commute with a little charge to spare.

Looking forward to the warmer months where I can go completely electric for my commute. On that note I have found the pre-conditioning on the vehicle pretty lacking. My car lives outside, and on scheduled preheat gets barely luke-warm inside. The windows don't melt snow much at all and also the seat/stearing wheel heaters don't come on which is a disappointment as my wife's Nissan does :/

While I'm ranting, the proximity sensors seem overly sensitive to snow on the car and I've had to silence it with the P button on the dash a few times. Not a huge deal, but again my wife's Nissan with the same technology doesn't do that.

I do love the car, don't get me wrong, just some little things which seem to revolve around Canadian winters to know about.

Ian

Yes the heater's significant drain on battery is a bit of a disappointment - audi really should have borrowed the much more efficient heat pump design from the e-golf (our other car). Works great and I've never even noticed any difference in battery life in cold weather