Audi Q6 e-tron review

It’s a mixed bag. For a car that starts at sixty grand, there are more hard plastics in the cabin than we would’ve liked to find and the cupholder cover in particular comes across as a little cheap. Elsewhere though there’s a good mix of leathers and avoiding black/grey really helps brighten things up inside. It’s like Audi decided it wanted to mash together a wellness centre and an arcade in here.

Ah, you’re talking about the screens aren’t you?

Indeed we are. The direction of travel among premium carmakers has been clear for some time: make screens bigger and make them more. We’ve questioned the wisdom of this for yonks (especially with Mercedes), and now we’re putting it to Audi: what’s with the endless digital surfaces?

The 11.9in virtual cockpit and 14.5in touchscreen are housed in a single, curved glass unit a la the latest BMWs, and some models even get a 10.9in screen that lets the front passenger meddle with the sat nav without having to, er, lean sideways a bit. It’s as superfluous as it sounds: there’s only a small number of settings that your co-pilot can access on there anyway and the one you’ll want the most help with - i.e. turning some of the ADAS off - can only be accessed through the main screen anyway. What’s the point?

Audi’s latest MMI system is visually impressive for sure, and although some of the menus and read-outs were a bit tricky to adjust to, we have to assume that you’ll just get used to them eventually. More concerning is the liberal use of touch-sensitive buttons on the door and steering wheel: it won’t take you long to turn on the radio by accident.

But the tech is good, right?

Nothing malfunctioned, put it that way. But for us it’s the scope of all that tech that’s so hard to compute (pun intended). Take the HUD: it’s not just a head-up display, it’s an augmented reality head-up display, complete with graphics that’ll stand up your nav directions and also underline the road markings ahead of you in red. What, in case the white lines themselves weren’t enough of a clue? Well done Audi, you’ve fixed a problem that didn’t exist.

Audi is also keen for you to know that its system is compatible with Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube… Teams as well before too long. Can’t miss the connectivity bandwagon after all.

Is it practical?

It’s more than spacious enough up front and it’ll easily seat four adults. Visibility past the A-pillar can get difficult for the driver at junctions, but the big wing mirrors mean it doesn’t feel like piloting a tank through a supermarket.

The boot will swallow up to 526 litres of stuff (1,529 with the seats down), or a tiny bit less in the SQ6. There’s a frunk too, but it’s quite small. There’s no load lip when you open the tailgate, but just bear in mind that the final bit of the floor is angled up towards the back seats: that might make the difference between getting that Ikea haul home, and having to fork out for delivery.