Quick Take: One Good and One Bad Feature of the 2025 Audi Q6 e-tronQuick Take: One Good and One Bad Feature of the 2025 Audi Q6 e-tron

This luxurious crossover EV is good sporty fun to drive.

Dan Carney, Senior Editor

February 4, 2025

4 Min Read
2025 Audi Q6 e-tron
2025 Audi Q6 e-tronAudi

At a Glance

  • The $76,790 2025 Audi Q6 e-tron has a 100-kilowatt-hour battery pack rated for 295 miles of driving range.
  • The optional Prestige Package includes the panoramic sunroof, augmented reality HUD, and adaptive cruise control.

Driving the $76,790 Audi Q6 e-tron is pretty similar to previous Audi EVs we’ve tested, so it was no surprise to find that it is an enjoyable ride. Audi's augmented reality head-up display remains an impressive technology that you can't help noticing.

Two other things stood out to me, one that I liked and one that I didn’t. I’ll start with the mistake.

For the Q6 e-tron, Audi has installed a control panel in the driver's door that handles functions that you don’t expect to find relegated to the door. The switches for the headlights and the fog lights are there, and it is the first time I can remember ever seeing that location for those functions.

Because the headlights are normally left in the “automatic” position, there is little reason to worry about where that switch is for most drivers, so that isn’t a big deal. Fog lights are mostly an unnecessary decoration and that is especially the case for a vehicle like the Q6, which has superlative headlights that don’t need augmentation.

But Audi also moved the door lock switches to this small panel from the previous position high on the door, right next to the door release handle. That’s not only right where you’d expect the lock button to be, but it is in plain view there, making it easy to find quickly.

Related:The 2024 Audi RS7 Performance Declares that More Is More

Audi_drivers_door_switch_panel.jpg

Instead, there’s a blank insert there, where the lock buttons used to be. On the passenger’s side door, that’s where they still are, taunting the driver with their ease of use in comparison to the annoyingly tiny and harder-to-find-in-a-hurry buttons.

That’s not all. The Q6 has buttons on the bottom of this panel to enable the child locks on the rear doors. There are separate buttons for the left and right sides so they can be activated individually.

But these switches are capacitive touch and they are at the bottom of this switch panel, right next to the horizontal row of switches on the door’s armrest that control the car’s four windows. Feel for those switches and it is easy to brush the capacitive touch rear door child locks. When you arrive at your destination, your rear-seat passengers complain that they can’t get out, and you aren’t sure why or what to do about it because you didn’t intentionally activate the child locks.

This whole panel is full of irritating unforced errors that any designer should know to avoid. There is surely a story of company politics responsible for this, with a frustrated Audi employee gesticulating and saying “I told you so.” But there it is.

Audi_Q6_left_charge_port.jpg

But Audi has also provided the Q6 e-tron with a good feature. Like other e-trons, the Q6 has two charging ports, one on the right side and one on the left. This makes wrestling a charging cord into position much easier, without worrying about which side contains the port. Previous e-trons have located these charge ports in the front fenders, near the front doors, but the Q6 has them in the rear fenders. With a port on each side, this doesn’t seem to make much difference.

Related:Audi Brings Augmented Reality to the Head-Up Display

Audi_Q6_right_charge_port.jpg

Unfortunately, as with those earlier models, the Q6 e-tron only has one port that connects to SAE Combined Charging System DC fast chargers, so when you’re making a pit stop at a public fast charger, you’ll have to jockey the car into position so that the cable can reach the driver’s side port.

These ports have power-operated doors covering them that you can activate from the driver’s seat, providing a head start on plugging in the cable, which is handy when you plug in upon arrival at home or work every day. Even better, the covers have weather sealing, so there’s no separate plug over the port behind the door that you have to fiddle with each time. This is how it should be done.

So, there’s some good and some bad to consider here, neither significant enough to sway a purchase decision, but worth being aware of.

Related:Audi App Store Delivers Dashboard Wallpapers

About the Author

Dan Carney

Senior Editor, Design News

Dan’s coverage of the auto industry over three decades has taken him to the racetracks, automotive engineering centers, vehicle simulators, wind tunnels, and crash-test labs of the world.

A member of the North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year jury, Dan also contributes car reviews to Popular Science magazine, serves on the International Engine of the Year jury, and has judged the collegiate Formula SAE competition.

Dan is a winner of the International Motor Press Association's Ken Purdy Award for automotive writing, as well as the National Motorsports Press Association's award for magazine writing and the Washington Automotive Press Association's Golden Quill award.

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He has held a Sports Car Club of America racing license since 1991, is an SCCA National race winner, two-time SCCA Runoffs competitor in Formula F, and an Old Dominion Region Driver of the Year award winner. Co-drove a Ford Focus 1.0-liter EcoBoost to 16 Federation Internationale de l’Automobile-accredited world speed records over distances from just under 1km to over 4,104km at the CERAM test circuit in Mortefontaine, France.

He was also a longtime contributor to the Society of Automotive Engineers' Automotive Engineering International magazine.

He specializes in analyzing technical developments, particularly in the areas of motorsports, efficiency, and safety.

He has been published in The New York Times, NBC News, Motor Trend, Popular Mechanics, The Washington Post, Hagerty, AutoTrader.com, Maxim, RaceCar Engineering, AutoWeek, Virginia Living, and others.

Dan has authored books on the Honda S2000 and Dodge Viper sports cars and contributed automotive content to the consumer finance book, Fight For Your Money.

He is a member and past president of the Washington Automotive Press Association and is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers

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