Audi A6 Sportback e-Tron - long-term review

It’s a bit of a cliché in the electric car world, but as the warmer months rolls around, EV owners tend to start getting a little smug and notice improved battery life — and with it, a welcome bump in range. So I hate to get a little smug, but the Audi A6 e-tron is playing this game too.

However, I suspect there’s an additional catch with the A6… and it’s me. 

You see, I like to think of myself as something of a driving talent. A natural, even. After all, I once harboured dreams of becoming a racing driver. And while that particular career path didn’t quite materialise (largely due to a lack of talent, funding, discipline, and… ability), I can still hold my own in a karting session with the Top Gear lot. In fact — and I don’t like to bring this up — I once beat all the road testers. Once. It counts.

But here’s the problem. Proper racing drivers aren’t just quick, they’re adaptable. They adjust, refine, and extract every ounce of performance from whatever they’re driving. Unless, of course, you’re The Stig, who appears to have been assembled in a lab using equal parts carbon fibre and witchcraft. He doesn’t adapt — he simply arrives ready.

So, my lack of adaptability has led me to drive the A6 like, well, a normal road car. Gas, brake, turn. Job done. I shouldn’t have done that. Because the more you let (or trust) the A6 to do the driving – well, the slowing down anyway – the better the efficiency gets. 

I’ve gone from 2.8/3 to 3.8 mi/kWh over the space of a few months, which on paper sounds like I’ve suddenly discovered a hidden reserve of Prost-like smoothness. In reality, I’ve just stopped fighting the car’s re-gen tech quite so much. It’s a bizarre driving experience, and one I’m still not entirely comfortable with.

At times it feels less like I’m driving and more like I’m supervising something that has already decided what it’s going to do. And that can be disconcerting. It lulls you into a slightly false sense of security: you lift off earlier than you normally would, let the A6 do its thing — quietly assess the road ahead with what can only be described as digital intuition withcraft, ramp up the re-gen, and slow the car gently — but crucially, it will not bring you to a complete stop. It’ll manage the energy, sure. The final judgement, though, is still yours.

With warmer months still to come, I’m intrigued to see if range improves further. Talking of range, I managed to have a quick go in the new BMW iX3 and boy is it impressive. Unlike the A6 experience, it didn’t feel like I needed to fundamentally change my driving style just to get anywhere near the claimed 500 miles.

Whichever way you look at it, it says quite a lot. EVs are evolving fast, and after ceding a lot of ground to Californian start-ups, it seems the Germans are quietly, meticulously and inevitably hitting the front, when it comes to premium models anyway. Will that save them from the Chinese? Time will tell.