Audi Q4 e-tron: a full day of hypermiling

The eighth hour of this historic odyssey comes when I hit a wall. Not literally – that would have been disastrous. But I feel broken. I’ve been riding for so long now that my neck and shoulders have clumped together into an amorphous mush of tendons and cartilage. I move like Michael Keaton in Batman. It happens again around 12 o’clock. That’s when I consider doing a Thelma & Louise and drilling the Audi Q4 e-tron from the Coventry ring road into the gray lump that used to be the sports center, just to end the boredom. I still have two hours to go.

You may be wondering how I ended up in this situation, but really it’s all my own fault. I thought it was a funny idea when someone else did it – and if the ex-military heroes of Mission Motorsport can go 400 miles with a Zoe on stock tires, why would they? TopGear can’t do it then? Not in a Zoe of course, we need something a little more chic. And not on a track. How about the ring around Coventry? So now I’m in an Audi Q4 e-tron in the heart of spare Detroit, the Motor City of the UK. I have a soft spot for the rolling concrete landscape of Coventry, I grew up here. Local knowledge is an invaluable advantage.

A bit boring

Only everything is different. piazzas everywhere, shared spaces and stacked, Soviet-style student residences. There are a few a few yards from the crash barrier where the drab viaduct of the ring road curls around the eastern part of the city. After four or five rounds, I wave to a young man preparing his lunch. What a friendly place.

The new Audi Q4 e-tron is an interesting tool for this challenge. Interesting because it’s actually a bit boring for an electric car. Sure, it’s a fine Audi, with the obligatory gorgeous interior and reassuringly solid build quality. It is spacious: there is room for five people and a lot of luggage, if you want to make it exciting in terms of electricity consumption. But the Q4 e-tron doesn’t flaunt its powertrain – it just quietly does its job. Literally. There is still no beep from the suspension or the windshield wipers. After four hours, there is a soft rustle on the passenger side, but it turns out that the 12-pack packets of crisps I brought with me fell against the door.

Assistance systems in the Audi Q4 e-tron

The air conditioning of the Audi Q4 e-tron remains off. There are three zones for the climate control, but I can’t use them because they use a lot of electricity. My cans of cloudy lemonade have become unappetisingly hot. I’m a bit spoiled as a driver – I assumed the Audi would have adaptive cruise control, but this morning at 5am I almost ran into a truck on my way here. Active steering assistance is also missing; not that such a system could easily find the middle of these erratic lanes.

I’m fine with doing everything manually, but a little assistance while eating chips would have been helpful. Audi offers the Q4 e-tron in three versions for the Dutch market. The car we drive here is the middle one, called Advanced Edition, which includes the Virtual Cockpit, sports seats, matrix headlights and fun LED mood lighting. I turned off the last one, because I want to make good use of every last electron. I don’t even know if I would be willing to pay extra for it. But a 77 kWh battery, I can do something with that. Those 515 WLTP kilometers are almost Prozac for range anxiety: just plug it in once in a while and don’t worry. But that’s not how I’m going to work today. I’m going for more, much more.

The busiest road in town

The Coventry ring road is 3.62 kilometers long, with nine intersections in close succession. The full name on his family tree is ‘A4053’ and it is the busiest road in the city: about 60,000 cars roll over its tarmac every day. Though I’m not sure how that number is counted – it could also be 400 cars all the same economy run do like me. Construction on the road started in 1959, the first stretch was completed in 1962 and the whole thing was completed in September 1974. Years of planning went into the ring road, first with a decent series of roundabouts, eventually resulting in the brutal rollercoaster ride that we now know. It roughly follows the wall that protected what was once a beautiful medieval town.

For the bigwigs of Coventry, the ring road represented the start of a new era. Manufacturing was an art here: this was the crown jewel of global automotive construction. The bicycle as we know it today was invented here. The first tank, the first dump truck and the first turn signals: all finds from factories in Coventry. At one point, 100 bicycle and car brands were active here.

A desolate affair

That booming and hopeful industry of the 1950s and 1960s disintegrated in the 1980s and 1990s: the jewels were pawned, the ring road and other large, honorable projects of yesteryear turned into scars in the landscape. Coventry polarizes. Academic and musician Michael Lightbone made an EP of sounds he recorded through the concrete pillars of the ring road, music with ‘an industrial desolation that can’t be beat’. Everyone will agree that when it comes to desolation, Coventry cannot tolerate anything.

I also feel quite gloomy behind the wheel of the Audi Q4 e-tron, although I don’t think it’s because of the car. My ride started with little hope, with a consumption of 1 kWh per 6.3 kilometers during my first round. This way I would at least be ready by lunchtime. But consumption steadily dwindled, and by lap 10 I was hitting 8.4 kilometers per kWh. It should be even better. I had consulted beforehand with the electro oracle of the TGeditors to determine my tactics. All very technical, difficult to put into practice, but in fact his advice came down to this: drive very slowly and stay away from everything.

Hellish Lazy River Ride

Except for the infotainment, because I’m going to need that. I spend the first few hours in French classes – I’ve basically only eaten chips during the last two lockdowns, so I’d better try to make the most of this voluntary car deprivation of liberty. After a while I manage to faire une reservation pour une personne à 19 hours, if I can ever escape this hellish Lazy River ride. It takes all my composure not to just stomp on the right pedal and put an end to it – after all, if we don’t get further than 200 miles, then so be it. Acceleration is sprightly, even with everything triple in eco mode.

I swipe through my podcasts, listen to some music. Round after round after round, endless round. I try to gauge if I’m getting dizzy yet. The first four hours I drive counterclockwise; then I’ll go the other way to balance things out. To the right, the ring road seems more hectic, the insertion is slightly more riotous, the traffic is busier. After four hours I turn back. And so time crawls by.

The Audi Q4 e-tron is almost as popular as the A3

My mind wanders to my own mortality, to loved ones I left behind. To the fact that the different bags of house brand chips all taste the same. The puke smell of the ill-advised energy drink I just opened. The strangely abbreviated place names painted on the pavement because the full names didn’t fit – I remember KEN’TH, NUN’TN and W’WICK from when I was a kid. Audi estimates that they will sell 20,000 Q4 e-trons here in the UK next year. This would make it the second most popular model of the brand, after the A3 – a sign that the EV is also available on this side of the North Sea. mainstream is becoming.

At around 10 am I hear a silly horn as I stop at the traffic light at the roundabout at the first intersection, the only break in the otherwise seamless route of the ring road. My father appears next to me in his mid life Smart convertible. He goes to do some chores, but calls through the window that I can later join the bean and sausage beepers. Eating champions, I hope. He takes off quickly – a lot faster than me anyway – and I remember to tell him his left brake light isn’t working. Dad, if you’re reading this…

177 laps in the Audi Q4 e-tron

Construction of a ring road like this would not be allowed today. It’s crazy, crazy, dangerous. A clumped pile of curves and slopes, blind kinks that fire you at traffic from all directions, an endless stream of roundabouts. It’s a cruel joke this town plays on unsuspecting motorists. You recognize the inhabitants of Coventry, because they are the ones who casually hurl their cars into the fastest lane. When I told my father about my plan, he immediately asked if I was taking the ring road ‘right’. You have to keep driving in the fastest lane, so that other cars can enter and exit more easily. I give it a try, but crawling along at 53 km/h feels safer among the slower traffic.

I do 177 laps. For no less than 14 hours I guided the Audi Q4 e-tron around Coventry at an unbearable glacier pace. I have 4 percent charge left, but my mom calls that dinner is ready. Those 177 rounds equate to 644 kilometers, with a consumption of 1 kWh at 8.85. We crushed the official range of 515 kilometers. I looked into Death and Boredom – cousins, you know – and came out alive. A hero? Oh, I don’t like to use the word. But go ahead.