Audi Q6 e-tron Review & Prices

The Q6 e-tron sits at the top of Audi’s electric SUV tree, following up the smaller (and brilliant) Q4 e-tron while taking the place of the larger, now-extinct Audi Q8 e-tron. It’s got a handsome interior, loads of room inside and long range battery options, but it’s let down by some questionable cabin materials and the driving experience around town.

It’s not alone in this part of the SUV market though, and the Q6 e-tron has some very capable alternatives in the form of the highly capable Tesla Model Y, BMW iX and the oh-so-stylish Polestar 3 - if your budget is flexible.

Think of it as the Sainsbury’s of the SUV world. It’s posher than most of its supermarket alternatives, but it’s not quite up there with Waitrose or M&S.

Though the Q6 e-tron isn’t as svelte as its Swedish counterpart, nor does it quite have the ‘get out of my way’ mean mug of the BMW, either. It’s definitely got some road presence, thanks in large part to its tall front end, but the fussy grille design and blobby corners don’t do it many favours at a glance.

You can have the Q6 e-tron in swoopy Sportback form, if you prefer the look of a coupe-SUV, though it's not as practical.

Audi Q6 e-tron: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 325-391 miles
Efficiency: 3.7-3.9 miles per kWh
Battery size: 100kWh
Max charge speed: 270kW
Charge time AC: 13 hrs 30mins, 0-100%, 7.4kW
Charge time DC: 22mins, 10-80%, 270kW
Charge port location: Rear right and rear left
Power outputs: 249/302/383hp

The interior is more interesting to look at, though if you’re cross-shopping Audis you’ll see more than a passing resemblance to the petrol-powered Q5’s cabin. You get Audi’s lovely latest-generation infotainment/driver display combo, curved towards you, and an optional (and gimmicky) third screen just for your passenger.

Still, the infotainment display is slick to use, highly responsive and has very crisp graphics. The driver’s display is equally clear, and the optional heads-up display is an impressive piece of kit, but there are a few too many menus to navigate, which can be frustrating.

If you don’t opt for the extra display, you get an ugly chunk of gloss black plastic in its place, and you’ll find more areas of ‘that’ll do’ around the interior. Where the leading edge of the dashboard is trimmed in rather nice, soft-touch materials, the door handles, lower centre console and lower dashboard are made from scratchy plastics.

Still, there’s lots of storage inside the Q6 e-tron: large door bins, a covered centre console cubby with a pair of cupholders ahead of it and a deep tray under the dash with built-in wireless charging.

There’s lots of headroom and legroom all round, and you’ll comfortably fit five adults into the Q6 e-tron thanks to a flat floor in the rear. The 526-litre boot is useful, and you get the added benefit of a frunk that can store your charging cables with room for a small bag too..

Range varies from the entry-level Q6 e-tron with a claimed 325 miles, all the way to the Performance model in Sport trim - with a bigger battery and up to 391 miles to a charge. The S-Line Performance and Quattro versions sit in the middle.

Driving around town isn’t the Q6 e-tron’s forte, as it’s remarkably difficult to place on the road - especially when parking - thanks to the large turning circle and poor forward visibility. Motorways are better, as the car settles into a comfortable cruise with only some road noise to contend with, but country lanes aren’t much fun.

Still, the Q6 e-tron does have its merit as a family SUV, and you can check out new Audi Q6 e-tron deals on Carwow, as well as Audi Q6 e-tron lease deals. Browse used Audi Q6 e-trons for sale through our network of trusted dealers, or other used Audis for sale too. Carwow can even help you sell your current car when you’re ready to make the change

The Audi Q6 e-tron sits by itself in between the starting prices of most other posh EV SUVs on sale. The entry-level Sport model starts at just over £61,000, around £15,000 more than the lowest-rung Tesla Model Y, but around £10,000 less than the BMW iX’s starting point.

It definitely has the badge appeal to be considered alongside the BMW, Polestar 3 and the Mercedes EQE SUV - even if it’s cheaper than the lot of them. You can get an Edition 1 Q6 e-tron for about the same money as a Long Range Single Motor Polestar 3, but the Polestar has around 130 more miles of range for the money.

Sport Performance Q6 e-trons offer a balance of range, performance and standard kit, as the price difference to the S-Line means you can opt for the Sound and Vision pack with its posh heads up display and fast phone charging - plus you get a useful 390 miles of range.

Impressively comfortable on the motorway, but it feels heavy on a twisting back road

In town

The Q6 e-tron is a big, bulky car and it does feel it when you’re trying to manoeuvre around town. The window line is quite high and it’s not that easy to make out where its corners are, so you’ll be relying on the car’s sensors and camera systems to make sure you don’t hit things.

Another parking annoyance is that the Q6 e-tron’s parking sensors don’t give you a steady, progressive increase in proximity warning. Instead the beeps seem to jump from ‘quite close’ to ‘stop or you’ll crash’ in an instant, which paired with the grabby auto-hold brakes can be very frustrating.

However, the electric powertrain makes for very smooth progress - in contrast to the slightly hesitant gearboxes you’ll find on many of Audi’s combustion-engined cars. The Q6 rides on air suspension, which is very good at coping with large bumps and potholes - it makes speed bumps almost disappear - but it does tend to fidget over smaller imperfections and pockmarked road surfaces.

On the motorway

The Audi’s air suspension does a brilliant job of smoothing out faster roads - it seems to float over bumps, though this does have the potential to make travellers feel a little carsick. You can choose a firmer setting if this bothers you, though.

There’s loads of power available for quick cruising, though a Tesla Model Y feels quite a bit lighter on its feet when it’s accelerating down a sliproad. The Q6 seems to be quite efficient at motorway speeds, though, which is reassuring if you need to use it for a lot of long journeys.

It’s also quite refined, with wind noise well suppressed and obviously no noise from the engine to worry about. All you hear is a little road roar from the very wide tyres.

On a twisty road

Some electric SUVs, like the BMW iX, are quite good fun on a nice winding B-road. The Q6 e-tron isn’t. The steering is very quick, so you don’t need to do a lot of arm-twisting even in tight bends, but it’s very remote and gives you no feedback about where the front wheels are pointing or how much grip they have.

In a series of bends you also tend to feel the Q6’s enormous weight, and especially when you have to brake - it takes a lot of effort to stop the 2.3-tonne Q6, even with the regenerative braking at its most aggressive setting. It’s not really very enjoyable driving the Q6 fast, and you’ll be better off just taking it easy and letting it soak up the road rather than attacking every corner.

A big boot and a useful front boot, but the interior doesn’t feel as spacious or airy as alternatives

The Q6 e-tron is a pretty big car, though it’s still quite a bit shorter than a BMW iX or a Mercedes EQE SUV. Still, front-seat occupants are well looked-after, with loads of adjustment in the driving position and comfortable, sporty seats with plenty of support. They’re electrically adjustable, and heated as standard.

The driver and front passenger get reasonable storage for odds and ends too. There’s a wireless phone charger, buried far enough down in the dashboard that your mobile won’t become a distraction. There’s also a pair of cupholders, capacious door bins and a large cubby under the centre armrest. 

Space in the back seats

Rear passengers don’t enjoy quite as much space as they would in the larger BMW iX or Mercedes EQE SUV, but there’s still plenty of room for a six-foot adult to sit behind a driver or front passenger of a similar size. Headroom is good too, and not particularly impacted by the big glass roof.

There’s no central transmission tunnel, which means that the rear centre passenger has enough room for their feet - though the middle seat base is quite narrow and firm. So three adults could quite happily sit abreast in the rear, but only for a short journey. ISOFIX points are available in the outer rear seats.

There’s also a fold-down armrest with twin cupholders, USB-C ports for gadget charging and useful sunblinds for the rear windows.

Boot space

The Audi Q6 e-tron has a 526-litre boot, which compares favourably with the 500-litre BMW iX or the 520-litre Mercedes EQE SUV. The cheaper Tesla Model Y is still the king of boot space though, with 854 litres.

The Q6's boot is a wide, unobstructed space, and the rear seats drop totally flat nice and easily. They fold in a 40:20:40 split, allowing you to carry long thin items in between two rear passengers. There’s also space underneath the floor to store the parcel shelf, which is a useful touch.

Also very handy is the addition of a 64-litre ‘frunk’ taking the space where an engine would go in a combustion car. Neither the iX nor the EQE SUV have this, and it’s a really neat space to hold charge cables, or to store dirty or muddy items away from the occupants in the main cabin.

Smart and well-built, but a little screen-heavy and some areas look difficult to use

In contrast to some electric cars where light and space is the order of the day, the Q6 e-tron feels much more typically Audi with its use of dark materials and a fairly traditional layout. That’s no bad thing, and in fact you might prefer it to the more unconventional iX or EQE SUV.

The top of the dashboard is dominated by screens. One seamless sheet of glass covers both an 11.9-inch display for driver information and a 14.5-inch infotainment screen, though unlike some Audis of old you don’t get a rotary controller to interact with this - it’s touchscreen or voice commands only. Optionally available is a further 10.9-inch display for the front seat passenger so they can control media or view data more easily.

The interface is fairly straightforward though suffers (as the iX and EQE do) with having so many features that it’s not always obvious which menus control which functions. You’ll soon learn where the essentials are, though. Climate controls are operated through the screen, which is par for the course with cars like this nowadays - but still less user-friendly than regular buttons.

The cabin environment is quite dark, but has big enough windows that it doesn’t feel claustrophobic. Material quality is generally good, and there are some nice design touches like a full-width strip of fabric running from door to door, but harder plastics hiding below the soft-touch dashboard, door tops and centre console do let the interior down a little. Some lighter finishes would lift the environment, too.

There are three powertrain options currently available for the Q6 e-tron (not including the SQ6), with either a 83kWh or a 100kWh battery, with the latter coming with two different power outputs. No matter which version you choose, all come with a heat pump as standard.

The entry-level battery option is the 83kWh battery, which delivers 249hp to the rear wheels and offers an official maximum range of 325 miles, depending on spec. If you want a bit more power, The 100kWh ‘Performance’ battery spec is more powerful than the 83kWh one, with an output of 302hp but offers the most range, with a maximum of a whopping 391 miles. However, if you want all-wheel drive, the ‘Quattro’ is available, which uses the same 100kWh battery, offers the most power output at 383hp but you do miss out on a little bit of range, with a maximum of 380 miles.

While they may be big batteries, they can charge quite quickly, with all battery variants being capable of charging from 10% to 80% in about 22 minutes. That’s enough time to get a drink and use the facilities at your favourite motorway services.

That being said, considering we barely managed to achieve 3.0mi/kWh with very gentle motorway driving in our Q6 e-tron Sport performance, you might end up at the services more often than you’d like; that’s only 79% of its claimed range.

Being an EV, there is the £10 first year road tax, and then the standard rate from there onwards. There is also the luxury car supplement to keep in mind, which is applicable from years two to six.

However, if you’re getting a Q6 e-tron as a company car, you get to enjoy the lowest benefit-in-kind rate.

The Q6 e-tron scored the full five stars when it was tested by Euro NCAP, continuing Audi's near-faultless record - all but one of its cars tested since 2009 has scored the full five-star rating. The Q6 e-tron itself comes with tons of safety equipment - the usual autonomous emergency braking, lane-departure warning and pedestrian safety aids, but there are also particularly clever headlights which can highlight lane markings, or taillights that can turn into warning triangles for following traffic.

Audi had a real shocker in the 2024 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, coming 27th out of the 32 brands entered. That’s several spots behind BMW and Mercedes, and while you only get a standard three-year/60,000-mile warranty with the Q6 e-tron, you can extend that up to five years/90,000 miles.

The Q6’s underpinnings are relatively new, and there’s so much tech that there is potential for teething problems - the earlier Q8 e-tron had issues with things like its electric door mirrors, for example. However, we’ll give the Q6 e-tron the benefit of the doubt until it’s been on sale for a while.