Audi E-Tron vs Nissan Ariya

What's the difference?

The e-tron S looks mean, feels premium, and blends serious power with surprising grace under pressure. I still can’t shake the feeling I had with the standard e-tron, though, that this car is an Audi sports SUV first and an electric car second, and its weight holds it back from being as fun to drive as I think some rivals are.

If you love Audi and you want to go electric without stepping into something too unfamiliar it’s a great option. If you want an electric car which takes full advantage of what the next generation of technology can offer, keep an eye out, there’s plenty of fresh metal on the way.

The Nissan Ariya made an excellent first impression on us in the short time we had to get to know it. The test vehicle's overseas spec meant we weren't able to experience it on public roads, so a 'real world' drive will have to wait until the car officially launches here in 2024.

At that point we'll also know the model line-up, final technical specification and pricing.

For now, we can say the Ariya appears to be easy and comfortable to drive, while offering excellent room for a car that's not at all large.

The e-tron S looks properly mean, with its adjustable ride-height suspension and enormous wheels combining nicely with the extra subtle sporty highlights to make for a squat SUV which clearly means business.

The width is especially evident with those accentuated wheelarches and the lines set by the lower wing to draw your eyes out to its edges. In profile it's easy to see its long wheelbase and tapered rear roofline, giving even the SUV a slinkier frame than you may be used to when looking at the comparatively boxy Q5.

The thing that strikes me about Audi’s e-tron range, though, is how little a departure it is. It ambiguously slots somewhere above the Q5 and below the Q7, but sticks very closely to the German brand’s styling script.

Sure, it looks a bit lower to the ground, and a bit meaner than you might expect for an EV, but it’s not as much of a departure as Jaguar’s I-Pace or BMW’s iX.

I suppose the biggest advantage here is nobody is going to say the e-tron’s overall visage is controversial, and certainly, it will appeal to existing fans of Audi’s design.

Inside it follows much the same theme, with all the key touchpoints and styling elements nearly identical to other Audis in the range, if not very similar.

It feels like a sensible, refined place in the cabin, with the only whacky pieces being the extra touchscreen for the climate unit and the strange thumb-operated shifter mounted on a floating piece which looks and feels like it could be the throttle control for a jet engine.

The dash is a bit more integrated and modern than in the conservative Q5 or Q7, with the air vents leading to the digital instrument cluster as part of an aesthetic three-terrace design which runs across the entire dash and into the doors.

The screens which appear in place of wing mirrors take a bit of getting used to. Aside from those notable departures, the interior continues the theme of sticking closely to the Audi formula, providing a more modern space which will still be familiar to existing fans of the brand.

The Ariya is a mid-sized SUV, about 4.6m long, which is close to the same length as a Toyota RAV4 but its styling is very different to the SUV norm.

The Ariya looks like a hatchback that's eaten another car with that big, bloated face and puffed-out wheel arches. But somehow, this SUV looks stunning, in an intriguing way.

The cabin is also beautifully odd in places such as the climate controls which illuminate out of the wood-like dashboard. But then there are more familiar elements such as the screens for media and driver's instruments.

Yep, the Ariya’s design treads the line between avant garde and everyday that makes it interesting without scaring people off.

Tesla’s Model Y is a direct rival to the Ariya, only about 10mm longer and has its own quirky, but very-Tesla interior that’s far more futuristic than the Nissan’s relatively traditional layout. 

As an electric vehicle, the e-tron has certain advantages over its combustion equivalents, and overall makes for an accomplished family-sized SUV. But there are areas where more could be done to take advantage of its high-voltage features and abundant footprint.

Up front in the cabin is a good place, with both occupants treated to lavish seats with plenty of head and legroom, great adjustability, and plenty of width in the cabin.

The finishes are beyond premium with thick chunks of well-padded leather meeting your elbows, hands, and knees at every point. As always the lovely Audi switchgear exists in most places, but the removal of solid toggles and buttons in favour of an extra touch panel feels unnecessary.

There’s still a physical volume knob, and while the climate touchscreen is plenty large enough to have a shortcut button for every function without needing a sub-menu, it feels like you have to move your eyes too far from the road to know you’re going to jab it in the right spot.

Even the main touch panel has an interesting haptic feedback effect for each press, designed to mimic the solidly-sprung button hardware the brand has used in the past.

The screen looks amazing and is fast and sharp, key hallmarks of computer hardware that's up to the task, although the resolution is so high the touch elements when using Apple CarPlay end up being a little small and hard to stab at while you’re trying to keep your eyes on the road.

For storage there’s a big bottle holder and bin in the doors, a large cutaway with a storage tray, dual bottle holders, and power outlets in the centre, with a further smallish storage area under the armrest console.

Unlike some EVs there’s no huge cutaway under what was traditionally considered the transmission tunnel, although there is a small bay with the USB-C ports.

The rear seat feels good for space, with an almost flat floor and decent legroom and width, although headroom could be better.

There are netted pockets on the backs of the front seats and decently-sized bottle holders in the doors, with a further set in the drop-down armrest.

The quad-zone climate with its own touch panel and adjustable centre vents is a nice touch in the rear, as is the set of USB-C ports below. The hard backings to the front seats and built-in sun blinds our car had will even be great for kids.

The boot measures in at 660 litres, which is high for the segment. It fit our three-piece CarsGuide demo luggage set with room to spare, and that's despite the massive battery pack under the floor.

There’s auxiliary storage, too, with a further bay under the boot floor and a second small tray situated under the bonnet, both useful for keeping your charging paraphernalia.

Leading up to the Australian preview of the Ariya I’d heard it was outstanding for space given its not-so-large exterior dimensions.

For the most part I found this to be true. Legroom in the second row is excellent, even for me at 188cm tall. Headroom back there isn’t as good as I expected with almost no room to place a hand between my noggin and the ceiling.

The flat floor in the second row creates more space and makes sliding from one side of the car to the other across the rear bench seat easy.

Up front there’s a large storage container Nissan calls the ‘Magic Box’ probably because it retracts neatly into the dashboard, although not due to any actual magic.

The sliding centre console is great for making more legroom for the unlucky middle seat passenger in the second row and offers superb covered storage. But it’s electric and as slow as a turtle, or a tortoise, I forget which one has legs.

Hyundai, Peugeot and other brands have these, too, but are manually operated.

The rear doors open wide making this an easy car to get in and out of, too.

The boot isn’t enormous. Nissan says it has a cargo capacity of 466 litres but those aren’t the VDA litres other brands such as Toyota uses, rather ‘liquid’ litres which is handy if you absolutely need to know exactly how much milk you’re able to pour into there. The load lip on the boot is also high, and will mean you’ll have to hoist items up and into it. 

The Ariya is still very practical, but the hype was overstated I think.

How much does the Ariya cost? Well, Nissan hasn’t announced pricing at this stage and won’t until much closer to the car's launch in 2024, but we think the list price will be close to $70,000.

How do we know this? We’ve zeroed in on the $70K mark because the Ariya’s direct rival is the Tesla Model Y which starts at $69,300 and tops out at $98,855 for the most powerful version.

Nissan would be barmy to price the Ariya higher than the Model Y and the company would also know Tesla could drop its prices in anticipation of the Ariya’s launch. 

What about the models in the line-up? Going by what’s offered in the UK, the Australian Ariya line-up could have two grades - an entry model and a fancy top-of-the-range version.

There will likely be a choice of two battery sizes as well as availability of an all-wheel drive version. 

So, with all that taken into account it’s likely the top-spec AWD could come in at about $90K.

That’s Nissan Patrol money for a mid-sized SUV, but it’s also not overly expensive given electric vehicles are still extremely costly to build and that extra spend is then passed onto the buyer in the asking price.

As for the features, well, in the UK the entry grade Ariya comes standard with dual-zone climate control, two 12.3-inch screens for media and the driver’s instruments, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, sat nav and a wireless phone charger.

There are also LED headlights and 19-inch alloys wheels on the overseas version. 

The S-branded e-tron sets itself apart from the rest of the range with a seriously powerful set of three motors. There are two on the rear axle, and one on the front axle.

The total combined output of this collection is 370kW/973Nm, which for a combustion car, would be unprecedented.

To be fair, these figures are under a ‘boost’ mode, with the car generating a still strong 300kW/800Nm in most situations.

The three motor drivetrain allows for an electric version of Audi’s ‘quattro’ all-wheel drive system which the brand says can react to changes in 30 milliseconds and move torque appropriately.

The system is rear-biased, and in the name of efficiency the front motor is only used when required under acceleration or cornering.

Nissan hasn’t announced the motor specs for Australian Ariyas. But in the UK the Ariya can be had with a 63kWh battery and a motor sending 160kW/300Nm to the front wheels, or a bigger 87kWh battery version with the motor making 178kW/300Nm.  

There’s an all-wheel drive called the 'e-4orce' with the 87kWh battery and two motors (one on each axle) making a total of 225kW/600Nm. 

We might get all these versions or just some… we’ll probably know towards the end of this year.  

The e-tron may be electric, but it’s also a performance car. To that end, its energy consumption, relative to the field, is behind the pace.

In fact, at a whopping 27.8kWh/100km, driving the e-tron around feels like the electric equivalent of steering a big V8.

It produced one of the highest consumption numbers I have seen from any EV during my time with it. Considering this number is even below the WLTP consumption number, which is 28.4kWh/100km, that's not great.

For comparison, the Mercedes-Benz EQC's official number is just 20.8kWh/100km, while the Jaguar I-Pace consumes 21.2kWh/100km according to the WLTP procedure.

Yes, they aren’t performance cars in the same sense, but it’s still a big difference.

I made sure to take it out and stretch the e-tron’s legs to assess its performance in its more sporty driving modes, but the majority of my time with the car was spent in a more comfort-oriented setting and with the regenerative braking set to maximum.

Possibly as a result of its real-world consumption, my car was showing about 350km of range on a full charge, a little below the official WLTP number of 364km, although it is worth noting the enormous 21-inch alloys do their part to reduce the range. The car ships with 20-inch wheels in Europe.

The good news is the e-tron is capable of charging fast, with its max DC charging speed set at 150kW (allowing for a 5.0-80 per cent charge time for its 95kWh battery of 30 minutes), and its AC charging speed set at 11kW, which allows a slow-charging time of around seven hours.

If you intend to park on the street or live in a unit where installing charge infrastructure is impossible, I would strongly recommend you consider the 22kW AC charging upgrade which will cut the AC charge time in half.

While there are few public stations currently capable of the full 22kW in Australia, it will future-proof your car for ideal convenience charging for when they're more commonplace. 

Nissan was still evaluating the Ariya for Australia at the time this preview was published and had not determined the ranges or energy consumption for the vehicle locally.

What I can tell you is in Europe the 63kWh battery offers a 403 km range, while the 87kWh gives you a more substantial 533km range. The all-wheel drive version offers a 500km range. 

The efficiency figures for the European cars are also indicative of those we could expect. The 63kWh battery version is claimed to consume 17.6kWh/100km and for the FWD Ariya with the 87kWh battery that figure rises to 18.1kWh/100km.

Does the e-tron live up to the promise set by sporty Audis which have come before it? The answer is interesting.

There is no doubt the e-tron S is rapid, at times absurdly so. If you stick it in the required S mode and hunker the suspension down, planting the accelerator makes its claimed 0-100km/h sprint time of 4.5 seconds suddenly very real.

It lurches ahead without so much as a squeak from its enormous tyres, grabbing the road with its front axle as it warps you forward.

So yes, this electric performance car is no doubt quick. It is also heavy. Weighing in at a tare mass of 2830kg, the e-tron S is quite literally massive.

The trouble is, while its powerful electric motors are great at overcoming this gravitational obstacle in a straight line, it’s in the corners and at low speeds where you feel every bit of it.

The e-tron crashes over larger bumps, it’s suspension struggling to deal with the combination of its weight and low-profile tyres, while it can also feel cumbersome in the corners around town.

The suspension is better at levelling things out once you gain a bit of pace, and the tyres work with the all-wheel drive system to put in a Herculean effort when carving up bends at speed, but there’s the ever-present lurch of weight always working against you.

This feeling isn’t helped by the steering tune, which even in its most comfort-oriented setting feels hefty and slow to turn. In the default sport mode, ‘dynamic’, it takes effort to push this car around corners.

Despite the unsettling feeling of it, though, the car holds on for dear life, and I never once felt as though the tyres were remotely in danger of breaking traction when put under pressure.

Is it a performer, then? Absolutely, there’s something mind bending about a vehicle so heavy going so quickly.

Does it feel fun to drive? Less so. I enjoyed the connectivity of the Porsche Taycan offers at speed more than I enjoyed the e-tron S, and its weight and girth demand a nice wide piece of tarmac for you to really wring it.

It’s far from a darty and engaging car like the Q5 can be despite its mammoth power outputs.

Elsewhere, the drive experience feels very Audi, though. The touchpoints and feedback are mostly familiar, as are the software and ergonomics.

The virtual wing mirrors are more of an inconvenience than anything else. This car is already hard to see out of, with big C-pillars and a tall belt line, and the digital exterior mirrors offer what feels like a limited angle of vision and make it extra hard to see out at night.

Some things fall to the wayside a little. The e-tron’s drive system almost hides the regenerative braking setting several menus deep, which, once activated, allows you to set it using the paddle-shifters on the wheel.

Audi says the regen will account for nearly 30 per cent of the car’s range, which is odd because even at the highest setting it feels a bit mild, relying on the user to manually operate the brake for a ‘blended braking’ mode to make up the difference.

It’s a bit of a stretch from the single-pedal driving modes offered on some rival cars.

My theory here, as with this car’s look and feel, is the e-tron is primarily designed to be familiar to an existing Audi customer, or someone coming out of a purely combustion premium rival.

This was the first time the Ariya had been driven in Australia. Okay, sure, we were only allowed to do so at a test track and not on public roads. And, yes, the car we drove was an overseas version given to us to test by Nissan.

But the opportunity meant we could get a hint of what it might be like to drive in the real world.

Plus, we could drive it at 110km/h, which is about 30km/h faster than the maximum allowed for CarsGuide colleague Stephen Corby when he first drove the Ariya for us in Sweden, thanks to the overly cautious speed limits in that country. 

We drove the FWD Ariya with the larger 87kWh battery.

First impression is the Ariya is an easy car to drive, smooth thanks to the electric powertrain with good (but no ludicrous) acceleration.

Handling and brakes are excellent, while steering has a nice weight to it but remains light and accurate.

At higher speeds there’s wind noise but that’s only noticeable because there’s no engine to drown out the sound of the air rushing past.

The test track we drove the Ariya on was a course bitumen loop that approximated Australian road surfaces and the Ariya felt comfortable and stable at all times no matter what the speed.

So, an easy car to drive that’s comfortable and handles well, with good acceleration but not outstandingly quick compared to a Tesla Model Y. 

The Ariya won't go on sale in Australia until next year and hasn’t been given an ANCAP assessment yet. But ANCAP will likely adopt the maximum five-star rating the car scored in its Euro NCAP test. We will have to wait and see.

That means the Ariya will arrive with AEB with pedestrian and cyclist detection, plus rear AEB. There’s lane keeping assistance and a 360-degree camera, too.

Audi has followed its Volkswagen parent in upgrading its warranty to five years and unlimited kilometres, finally leaving BMW and its three-year warranty behind.

The e-tron’s high-voltage battery components are covered by a separate eight-year and 160,000km warranty, but the big win, especially in this premium segment, is the first six years of servicing (covering three 24 monthly or 30,000km visits) is free.

Oh, and your public charging is largely free for the same period too, as Audi throws in a six-year ChargeFox subscription.

Six years pretty much cost-free? Audi, how far you’ve come.

We’d expect the Ariya to be covered by the same five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty Nissan Australia applies to all its vehicles.

The battery will likely be covered by a separate eight year/160,000km warranty just like the Nissan Leaf EV.

Service pricing will be available once the car's final specification is settled.