Time for a dose of reality. If you’ve read my earlier reports you’ll know I’ve been enjoying my time with the Audi very much, but I’m yet to find the perfect car and that didn’t change the day this one turned up. I therefore wanted to dedicate an entire update to the S e-tron GT’s flaws as I see them, which range from minor annoyance to potential dealbreaker.
Let’s begin with the petty stuff. The car never connects wirelessly to my phone the moment I step inside, like an irritated spouse giving the cold shoulder treatment. Sometimes it takes 15 seconds, other times it might be several minutes. Quite often I’ve driven along without maps, a podcast or the ability to make calls for the first few miles of a journey, just waiting for the infotainment system to recognise my phone and fire up CarPlay. Petty, like I said, but it doesn’t happen in other cars.
As I wrote in an earlier article, the Audi sometimes boots itself up fully when I sit inside, but sometimes it waits for me to press the start button myself. And it’s not always obvious which it is, meaning I often send it back to sleep again by needlessly jabbing the button. Sometimes I try to select drive or reverse when the car isn’t even awake. It’s the inconsistency that’s annoying. Maybe there’s a pattern I haven’t spotted, something to do with the sequence in which I unlock it, shut the door, fasten my belt or whatever. Either way, your very first interaction with a car shouldn’t be so confusing. It should be as simple and intuitive as possible.
