The second sub-$100k car to bear the e-tron badge is a world apart from the first - and also stands out from other current e-trons.

Price: $99,990.

Powertrain and economy: Single electric motor, 150kW/310Nm; 77kWh (82kWh gross); single speed; rear-wheel drive.

Vital statistics: 4588mm long, 1632mm high, 1865mm wide, 2764mm wheelbase. Luggage space 520/1490 litres, 19-inch wheels.

We like: Well-engineered and quality build; roomy; refined on-road feel.

 Not so much: Odd drive selector, boot quite shallow, dated screen graphics. 

ANYONE still coming to grips with the whole e-tron thing is truly stuck in the past - before mid-2009, really. 

That’s when the descriptive coined, as a nameplate for a Frankfurt motor show concept. To put in context that R8-based styling study came out three years before production start for Tesla’s first global player, Model S. 

New Zealand has known e-tron since 2016, though the tech then was way different to now. Fifty kilometres’ pure electric range, and overall delivering maximum efficiency of 1.7 litres per 100km, was a headline maker back then. But the price! At $75,000 initially, dropping to $69,990 after a year in the market, that A3 Sportback which, for all its electric involvement, still requiring a petrol engine as regular back-up was patently only for a select few.

Any different now? Well, times are changing. Sure, the three fully e-trons that have come in the past few years have been pricey and aimed at select audiences. But as part of its goal of being a net-zero carbon neutral company by 2050, Audi plans to introduce 30 electrified models to its range by 2030 – almost half the line-up of cars it sells. This includes 20 all-new all-electric models that will cover everything from SUVs to thrilling performance cars. Next for us are Q6 and A6 representations. So the buyer catchment is growing.

Not least with Q4 e-tron. This is Audi’s first mainstream fully electric car and it’s expected to pull plenty of business; to point of potentially being the biggest selling individual model here next year. 

Apart from holding that role, it’s also the first e-tron under $100k since the original. Admittedly, it achieves that status with a bare $10 to spare and that spend also buys the least expensive Q4; the entry rear-drive, single motor ’40’ sports utility tested today. With Audi, ‘cheap’ doesn’t apply. Everything is in levels of expensiveness. 

So it’s still somewhat dearer than directly comparable VW Group stablemates with the very same drivetrain and battery, in identical outputs: The gap on the ID.4 having widened the most, with VW having effectively cut (when the rebate is included) $14k from the the base car’s original $79,990 tag. But it’s an Audi. That’s just part of the territory.

In respect to spend, the test car was actually even more of a test of badge loyalty, by virtue of it having options of a Style Pack - which replaces the standard 19-inch alloys with 21s and adds black accents to the exterior - and a Sound Pack. the latter primarily delivers a belting Sonos stereo, but curiously also adds in a heated steering wheel (heated seats are standard). Anyway, the car you see here is a $108,990 ask.

Would you buy in when there are other family options that deliver just the same, for less? Someone lacking dispassionate to brand ethos and different levels of social standing might. Arguably, no-one of such disposition buys any kind of premium car.

One big relief for Audi-philes must surely be that, for all the huge amount this car shares with blue collar cousins, there’s nothing to show for that beyond similarity in stance and overall size. 

But no exterior panels are shared with the Skoda or VW cars and the divorce is just as total within the cabin; from what I could tell, not so much as a single common control was shared with the ID.4 I’d been driving directly beforehand. Even the cost effectiveness of a common key fob is avoided.

So ‘Audi-ness' is established, though inasmuch as that goes, Q4 lends an interesting focus. 

Whereas other e-trons of the moment tend toward rakishly futurism, Q4 - very likely because it logically site as an alternate to fossil fuel-reliant Q3 and Q5 sports utilities - seems to use the same styling playbook as those cars, with which it splits the difference almost perfectly on height and length, with a long-wheelbase and cabin-forward, short-bonnet proportion. 

The blanked-off 'grille' shape up front is one of the few visual clues to it being electric rather than a combustion-engined choice for families seeking practical roominess from a handsome car sporting a trendy badge.

Bearing in mind this is a design that, though new here, has been in production for three years already, the Q4 stands up pretty well. However, proposal that the attractiveness is somewhat dependent on paint colour, specification and wheel size is solid. 

On the eye candy scale, the sweetest treat has to be the ’50 S-Line’ format - which brings the big wheels as also dual motor; so more grunt and quattro - in the alternate Sportback styling. But that’s a $30k extra spend. If you’re going to the base car, the bigger wheels with their lower profile rubber are must. I’d be personally cautious this car’s aurora violet paint hue.

Electrics are operationally different than ICE yet, apart from it lacking an orthodox gear shifter and the steering wheel being flat on top as well has having the usually flat bottom (which I initially had reservations about but found to be okay) will fundamentally seem highly familiar to anyone with previous Audi experience.

Behind the wheel is the expected digital set of instruments, with various views to choose from, there’s a large central touchscreen with the climate control switchgear neatly clustered underneath. 

Below this is, as per the other MEB cars, a 'floating' console. This holds the drive selector, start-stop button and a few other controls close to hand, with USB ports and a wireless phone charger and its of oddment space below. 

Between the seats are two cupholders and another storage area under the armrest, with more in the doors.

Brief time with the Sportback styling at the national launch showed that a sharper roofline in the name of style has less impact on rear-cabin space than you might think. However, if the Q4 is being bought for family practicality, the SUV has strongest allure. As is the sister VW Group models, you’ll appreciate the biggest benefit of electric: a flat floor and no driveshaft tunnel intrusion. There’s loads of legroom for three adults and very good headroom.

The boot is commodious, too, holding 520 litres with all seats occupied, and there's a big underfloor storage section in which charging cables can be stored You can tumble the rear seat backs forward in various combinations to open up the space for larger loads. Like the other MEBs, it lacks a frunk. All the space under the bonnet is taken up by air conditioning hardware.

All sister brands bring their own seats; in a contest for comfort, I’d have to say the Enyaq Max’s sports-style chair is the one I like best for driving, but the Audi’s embossed sport seats, upholstered in a mix of synthetic leather and fabric, isn’t bad either. There's plenty of adjustment in the seat, wheel and mirrors but visibility-wise, the A-pillars create large three-quarter blindspots.

There are a couple of could-do-betters going on. for one, as in the VW, the central touchscreen doesn’t offer an obvious place to anchor an outstretched hand, making it less comfortable. It can also can be hard to hit the right square centimetre of the screen with your left hand when the car’s moving at speed. 

The transmission selection, being a sliding switch, looks smart but isn’t so clever when you’ve snipping to and from the ‘B’ mode, to enable generative braking. The concept of nudging it up and down with Drive otherwise engaging is easily undone; bring it back a touch too far and you’re in Neutral. VW’s idea of a hand-twist selector up behind the steering wheel is better.

The screen displays in all Audis all seem a bit old school in appearance now; though I can’t quite reconcile exactly why I feel that way. 

Maybe it’s the of the font they use; maybe it’s everything being in white on black, anything activated going red. Anyway, the displays always zing a lot more when you’re using the Car Play interface. For some reason, it seems odd to me, too, that the electric use the old wand-style control for cruise control. With electric, would touch controls be more in vogue? on that subject, Audi’s climate controls being a set of physical chunky switches, rather than the touch-sensitive sliders you find in the IDs is great. It’s all the same tech underneath, but Audi’s is much nicer. 

It’s just nit-picking, though, because all in all material and build quality is excellent, with harder plastics used only for the lower parts of the doors.

When driving ID.4 and Enyaq, I felt both had their own distinct feel. It’s the same with Q4. Audi has managed to put its own stamp on how it drives. 

It’s a sizeable car and, of course, the electric side influences weight, but it feels smaller and more agile than you might imagine it could, given the kilo count and the car’s sheer size, particularly the width. Put MEB platform cars into regular carparks and they leave little spare space between the painted lines.

Audi puts great store in the variable ratio steering; essentially, with this, the further away from straight ahead you turn the wheel, the quicker the steering becomes. It's not overdone, but you can sense how it leaves a heightened sense of nimbleness.

For all that, it’s not a Rohrl player by any means. As much as the Q4 expresses good body control, the emphasis is clearly on decent comfort. Like the others of its familial group, it is not a car for chucking about, but instead works best when operated with thought to smoothness and relaxation. 

If you imagine the Audi credo demands more sportiness, then switching to Dynamic mode at least introduces a sharper throttle response gives you punchier performance off the line and at higher speeds. But it’s hard too think many people will use that as their default, because the car car’s overall demeanour seems better in Comfort. Certainly, too, going there and driving with a degree of restraint allows it to best express its overall forte of a premium level refinement. 

If you’re antsy for more vroom and sharper corner attacking aptitude, the answer is the Q4 in dual motor Quattro format. It is, on strength of just start acquaintance on launch, a very different car. Much sportier and more assertive than the ’40’, in which the 150kW/310Nm motor is decent but not decadent. With the base formula, zero to 100kmh occurs in a pleasingly rapid and effortless manner, but it’s not a tyre-burner.

Audi quotes an average energy consumption figure of 19.6-to 16.6kWh/100km, which is on par with the others using this drivetrain. Just like a fossil-fuelled car, it optimises efficiency more in open road driving at constant pace then in town, when you’re on and off the throttle and brake all the time. We took the car for a prolonged open road run and, with the air conditioning in use, we got close to the official read-out with no particular effort. The battery can be charged at up to 135kW with a DC charger.

If you only compare the Q4 e-tron with its Skoda and VW siblings, it looks expensive, but ever has it been thus. The Q4’s premium-ness is apparent, but moreso when comparing with the ID.4 than the Enyaq which, in Max fit out, is a compellingly plush car to my eyes.

Still, MEB isn’t just about offering choice within the VW Group. It’s a competitor for a wider range of cars, including from Volvo, Kia and Hyundai and from Tesla. In terms of its qualities and equipment levels, it stands up reasonably well. The badge cachet of an Audi at this money within the electric-sphere is also important. 

It’ll all come down to individual taste, but that in itself is a great thing. The idea that there is now genuine choice for the battery cars at this price level is, in itself, worthy of celebration.