Audi Q4 e-tron Can Get 400 Miles of Range from Hypermiling

While Audi has several electric cars on sale at the moment — with several more on the way — its EVs don’t boast the longest of ranges. In fact, on paper at least, most of its EVs’ ranges are below the high standard of most Tesla vehicles. However, it seems that, if you really push the Audi Q4 e-tron to the test, you can actually get an impressive range out of it.

Top Gear’s Sam Burnett recently attempted a grueling and boring hypermiling adventure in the Audi Q4 e-tron, around a 2.25 mile route for over eight hours straight. That’s brutal. To attempt this, Burnett turned off all of the car’s air conditioning, put it in its most eco-friendly, range-saving modes, and drove it as gently as a frightened grandmother, all to eek out as much range as possible.

The Audi Q4 e-tron comes with a 77 kWh battery pack, good for a claimed 312 miles on the European WLTP cycle. According to the far stricter U.S. EPA, the Q4 e-tron can only do around 250 miles. That’s around 3.2 miles per kWh, which is just okay in this current EV market. Most Teslas clear four miles per kWh no problem.

Burnett, however, did much better than the claimed figures. In fact, he obliterated them. He lapped the 2.25 mile ring through Coventry, England 177 times (someone buy that man a beer). Simple maths says that’s 398.25 miles and yet he stopped with four percent of battery left. That equates to around 5.6 miles per kWh, which is excellent in the current market.

Of course, Burnett had to hypermile as extremely as possible to make such a range happen, while also driving through a very short urban route. That urban route provided a ton of regenerative braking opportunities and barely stressed the electric motors. So it’s quite easy for the Audi Q4 e-tron to achieve those results in such an environment. Still, it does prove that it’s possible to get far more out of the battery than claimed.

[Source: Top Gear]