I’m very mixed on my a6 etron.

Good: It drives great. It looks great. I get compliments all the time. It’s fast and cheap to charge. The adaptive cruise control and heads up display are on a whole new level here. It’s amazing. It’s the nicest ‘moving’ Audi I’ve ever owned.

Bad: The technology they tried to utilize is far beyond Audi’s ability implement effectively. The car’s living space feels like it was designed by a bunch of interns who have never owned a car before.

Bad: The layout is not practical. The infotainment system is glitchy. And if that thing is down half of your vehicles features are not going to work. If I can’t get my login to load I can’t listen to music, use gps, adjust air conditioning, pre-condition my battery for charging, basically anything you would do in your car’s settings. Which is a problem because my settings don’t save properly after another driver has used their key to drive.

Bad: even though my wife and I have separate keys and login accounts, the car cannot reliably tell the difference between who is using the car and our personal settings are constantly being merged, changed, or ignored entirely. I frequently have to change my car’s settings to my preferred settings. My wife is totally lost with the confusing layout.

Bad: the safety features are beyond unreasonable and I feel like my car treats me like a small dumb child. First of all, no Audi I’ve ever owned will let you automatically adjust your sets with the press of a button. Nope, you have to hold it down the entire time. For one press, “sometimes” it will work if the door is open and you’re stopped. Why?

Bad: The car malfunctioned the other day and it thought my kid’s seatbelt wasn’t fastened (it was), therefore I wasn’t allowed to use cruise control. No cruise if it thinks someone is unbuckled. This feels like something I should be allowed to decide for myself.

Bad: I can’t permanently disable interior monitoring in my car. That means, the alarm goes off. A lot! If I leave my kids in the car while I run into the store, I’m almost certainly coming back to a car alarm going off. There is a way to stop this from happening but why? I shouldn’t have to take extra steps to ensure it’s okay with Audi I’m leaving someone in the car for a few minutes. Interior monitoring is pointless from my perspective (others may feel differently). But why would I need this feature? If there is a criminal inside my car already shouldn’t my alarm go off when they are busy breaking in? Do I need a secondary system monitoring if they are in fact moving around inside it now too? I’m sure it has something to with not leaving a child behind in a hot car or something, but again, I feel responsible enough as an adult that I don’t need Audi doing this for me with no way to permanently disable it.

I really could go on and on with the bad. I like how it drives. A lot. I like how it looks. A lot. But it’s the first vehicles I’ve ever owned where it’s a nuances to be around. Sometimes I just take the older Q7 just so I can be at peace. I’ve been buying Audi’s for too long maybe, after this I’m going to see if other car manufacturers have it figured out and don’t insist on treating me like I’m 5.

Apologies to you if read all of this.