When the lease of my old car was coming to an end, my employer was kind enough to agree to replace my 2019 Audi Q2 30 TFSI with an ID3 as per my request. The car was ordered in Nov’22 and was finally delivered early in July. Unfortunately, it’s still the pre-facelift model.
Inside:
First impression upon delivery was good. Compared to the base model Q2 the inside of the car is actually visibly better. The Q2 only had hard plastic in the doors and the lower part of the dash which are all black. Now I have at least different colours / materials and the door handle in ‘piano black’. Personally, I really like the minimalist interior of the ID3. The ‘pause’ and ‘play’ symbols on the break/accelerator pedals are a nice touch, Also I find the seats of the ID3 are lot more comfortable. Overall, a decent gain compared to the Q2.
Ergonomics / Usability:
To be perfectly honest upfront: I am not the biggest fan of touchscreen and touch sensitive buttons. As we all know, the ID3 has very few actual buttons, so I was a bit apprehensive. After one month of use I can confirm that it’s OK. The buttons on the steering wheel work fine and provide good feedback when pressed. The infotainment screen works OK as well, although occasionally lacks a little when first started. The fact that there are only two buttons for the windows is a gain for me. I did find that in the Q2 I would press the wrong window button fairly frequently. Also the gear selector in the ID3 I find much better than the old fashioned automatic gearbox stick in the Q2
In comparison to the Q2 I preferred the physical buttons on the steering wheel and the “click dial” device in the centre console. Both provide the haptic feedback to operate them without taking the eyes of the road while driving.
Overall I preferred the way the Q2 could be operated, however switching to the ID3 is no problem at all. In my opinion the issues with the touch input are massively overstated in the motoring press.
Driving and Comfort:
Driving the ID3 is an absolute pleasure. I love the silence when driving with no engine noise. Most impressive is the responsiveness of the car. Whenever the accelerator is pressed the car just launches forward with no delay. In terms of ride comfort ID3 and Q2 are comparable with a small advantage for the Q2 handling bigger bumps in the road. I feel the Q2 did handle really bad road surfaces a bit better. I assume this is due to the lower weight of the car compared to the ID3.
Overall, this section is a massive gain for me. I would not want to go back to drive an ICE car - ever. The ID3 provides a perfectly smooth ride with no noise, no engine vibration and more importantly none of the silly ‘stop and start’ ICE cars have to do when stopping at traffic lights.
Efficiency:
I guess that it’s no surprise that the ID3 is an a different league when it comes to efficiency and cost effectiveness. For my use case I will charge the ID3 predominately at home for currently 10p per kw/h. Compared to the Q2 and the current average consumption of the ID3 of about 4.4m / kwh, I am looking at cost savings north of 80%. This is a massive win for the ID3.
Conclusion:
Switching to an EV has been an excellent decision for me. Aside from a slight learning curve to get used to the touch controls the transition from Q2 to ID3 has been a very smooth and enjoyable. I feel that driving an EV is so much nicer then an ICE car. Adding in the cost savings plus the piece of mind of zero emission driving and it becomes a no brainer.
