Author: FriesYo

Early this morning, I sensed a hint of cold killing intent from my girlfriend’s solemn expression.

“I didn’t do anything wrong recently…” I whispered to myself. It wasn’t until I opened WeChat and scrolled through my friend circle that it dawned on me—it was 520 today.

It’s like how mentioning electric cars used to make everyone immediately think of Tesla, but as electric cars shift from being a pioneer consumer product to a mass-market one, especially when those traditional luxury brands truly begin to develop pure electric cars, how will the product form of electric cars develop?

And on this special day, 520, FAW-Audi has brought the first pure electric luxury SUV from the Audi brand based on a pure electric platform. The reasonably priced Q4 e-tron starting at 300,000 RMB may provide some new ideas to this question.

Crisp e-tron flavor, a taste of e-tron

First of all, we must thank FAW-Audi for being able to introduce and localize the Audi Q4 e-tron so quickly.

But to be honest, I had a doubt when faced with the Audi Q4 e-tron.

“Is it e-tron enough?”

Luckily, this concern was dispelled by more than half when I saw the front face of the Audi Q4 e-tron.

The Audi’s new iconic octagonal grille immediately gave the Audi Q4 e-tron a “taste of e-tron.” The fully enclosed grille design is also telling us clearly that “this is a pure electric vehicle.”

If the octagonal grille is the soul of Audi’s front face, then the Q4 e-tron’s front bumper, which spans across the front of the car under the grille, is like a seasoning added to a bowl of “e-tron-flavored” broth. It’s as if e-tron’s mom opened the door for e-tron. In summary, e-tron has arrived.

As for the headlights, glancing over them, you know that they are from the top lighting manufacturer.# Audi Q4 e-tron: A Combination of Sci-Fi and Luxury

The suspended matrix LED headlight system is certainly not absent from the Audi Q4 e-tron and it even has a new trick up its sleeve. Based on the suspended matrix LED headlights, the Audi Q4 e-tron uses the industry’s first digital daytime running light technology, which can provide four types of digital personalized signature lighting effects and dynamic lighting effects.

To put it more simply, the Q4 e-tron has the same front face, but with different daytime driving light styles. Just like the expression in a person’s eyes, different facial expressions convey different states of mind and emotions. Thanks to the digital daytime running light technology, simply touching the MMI system inside the car can give the Audi Q4 e-tron a new expression.

Turning our focus to the rear of the car, behold the continuous LED taillights that are identical to the e-tron’s, which pushes the Audi Q4 e-tron even closer to the e-tron.

Okay, at least in terms of appearance, I can confirm that the Audi Q4 e-tron is very e-tron.

Mech Style Meets Luxury?

In the age of electric cars, the large screen inside the car no longer excites me too much. Looking into the interior of the Audi Q4 e-tron, perhaps the excellent driving experience of the e-tron left too many memories, and the first thing that caught my eye was the sporty steering wheel with flat edges at the top and bottom.

Shh, let me imagine the picture of driving on a mountain road while gripping the steering wheel tightly. Look forward to it, look forward to it, look forward to it – important things should be said three times.

The next thing that caught my attention was the unique shape of the center console of the Audi Q4 e-tron.

Audi uses an interior panel embedded with an LED ambient light strip to divide the instrument panel of the front seats into two suspended sections, with clear boundaries. By the way, the Audi Q4 e-tron is equipped with a 30 x 30 color-enhanced version of the ambient lighting system, which can be matched with 900 different ambient light effects to match your different moods on 900 different days.# Coming back to the dashboard design, above the LED ambient light strip are the LCD instrument panel, infotainment screen, and air conditioning vents.

It is worth mentioning that the air conditioning vents of the Audi Q4 e-tron appear to be embedded into the suspended layered dashboard, and the sharp lines give an industrial, futuristic aesthetic to what could have been an ordinary vent.

Below the dashboard are the light control buttons and physical buttons for the air conditioning system. Yes, you read that right – physical buttons still exist in the Audi Q4 e-tron. There is no absolute advantage between virtual buttons on a big screen and physical buttons, just different preferences. We also conducted a similar poll on Weibo, and the results were roughly equal. As they say, to each their own.

The improvement of the materials used for the interior is the most significant aspect that FAW Audi enhanced when locally producing the Audi Q4 e-tron.

The dashboard of the Audi Q4 e-tron employs New-Tec material, which is softer to the touch, and aluminum decorative strips that accentuate its sporty style. The stitch-design on the door panels might appear familiar to Audi fans. Yes, it is the diamond stitch line design identical to the Audi A8L Horch edition with added Dinamica material. FAW Audi aims to deliver an exquisite and luxurious experience through its own design language.

Can you guess its capacity?

Another highlight of the Audi Q4 e-tron is the spacious interior.

Two adult males who are both 1.8 meters tall can sit in the front and rear seats comfortably without feeling cramped, with ample space to spare. It is hard to believe that this space owes its design to an A-level SUV with dimensions of 4588 × 1865 × 1626mm.

This excellent space performance is largely due to Volkswagen Group’s latest pure electric MEB platform.

One of the great features of this pure electric platform is that it starts with the battery as the origin and designs the whole vehicle architecture. In other words, the Audi Q4 e-tron considers the user’s requirement for interior space in the design stage.

On the one hand, the Audi Q4 e-tron adopts a short front overhang and long rear overhang design, optimizing and integrating the mechanical structure of the vehicle to reduce the intrusion of these structures on the interior space of the car in the longitudinal dimension.

On the other hand, the battery pack of the Audi Q4 e-tron is placed flatly below the passenger space, minimizing the impact of the battery on the interior space of the car in the vertical dimension.

The result of these efforts is what Audi calls “A-class SUV body size, B-class SUV trunk space, C-class SUV cab space.”

Regarding the powertrain, Audi announced that the Q4 e-tron will feature a highly integrated electric drive system that combines the motor, control, and gearbox in one unit. The four-wheel-drive version with dual motors can even achieve e-quattro intelligent electric four-wheel drive. Yes, it’s that quattro that says, “You just step on it, the rest is up to quattro.”

In addition, the Q4 e-tron will have progressive steering, integrated electro-hydraulic brake system, dynamic damping control suspension, and a 79.7 kWh battery pack from CATL. If you think I’m not looking forward to driving the Audi Q4 e-tron, that’s definitely a lie.

A New Era of Luxury Pure Electric Vehicles

For Audi and even traditional luxury car brands, the Q4 e-tron is a new era and product. This “new” advantage is reflected in two aspects.

First, it is a truly pure electric platform.

The Audi Q4 e-tron is not only the first pure electric car developed based on a pure electric platform for the Audi brand but also for traditional luxury car brands.

When it comes to electric vehicles from luxury brands, the topic of “oil-to-electricity” is unavoidable. Although we can discover through comparison that cars are not just a pileup of various technologies, but also an engineering product. The accumulation of car manufacturing by luxury brands can allow them to produce pure electric cars with a good experience, but the engineering implementation details that cannot be explained in detail ultimately allowed luxury brands to suffer from publicity.

And now, the Audi Q4 e-tron can proudly say, “The real pure electric car from a traditional luxury brand is here.” With the combination of pure electric branding and engineering accumulation, how can we not expect the real performance of the Audi Q4 e-tron.

Secondly, it’s cost performance.

The starting price of the Audi Q4 e-tron is 300,000 RMB, which is a pure electric model with good cost performance for a luxury brand like Audi, especially in the context of the rising prices of electric vehicles. Compared with the electric cars launched by BBA in the past, with prices ranging from four to five hundred thousand RMB, the Audi Q4 e-tron reflects the determination of FAW Audi to promote electrification.

Let’s continue to expand our horizons. The appearance of the Audi Q4 e-tron actually represents two different paths of pure electric vehicle development.

If you are more concerned about laser radar, autonomous driving, and chip computing power, then don’t hesitate, new force automobile brands led by Tesla are definitely more suitable for your brand.

However, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, when the trend of electric vehicle electrification is dominant, electric vehicles are no longer exclusive fashionistas. More and more ordinary consumers will also join the group of electric vehicle users. Among these larger mainstream automobile user groups, there must be users who pay more attention to the luxury and quality of automobiles. Therefore, pure electric cars like the Audi Q4 e-tron launched by traditional luxury brands are also their preferred choice.If you are, like me, a fan of the e-tron who has experienced its charm, would you blindly purchase one without test-driving it? After all, by placing your order before 24:00 today, you can enjoy a financial package with low down payments, low monthly payments, and low interest rates for 36 months, as well as free brand charging wall boxes, eight years of free roadside assistance, three years of free after-sales maintenance services, one year of worry-free compensation for accidents, three years of free car networking services and traffic, and eight years or 160,000 kilometers of triple-electric quality assurance and other benefits.

For young people who really want to own an e-tron, the above pile of benefits, even when read alone, can be a bit dizzying, not to mention how confusing it can be when written out. But they are all real and tangible.

Anyway, our safety director has already placed an order at the earliest opportunity – no wonder they keep getting richer, knowing how to seize the moment.

Well, that’s enough from me. I’m going to check through my finances now.

Also, I want to ask my boss, Teacher Chang: “Boss, can our company advance our wages?”

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.