New Audi Q4 e-tron: improving UX to update your bestselling EV

After five years on sale, Audi has heavily updated its highly successful Q4 e-tron. The fully electric SUV is the brand’s bestselling EV and presents mighty successful shoes to fill, making it of little surprise its changes are, on the surface, kept light. While new bumper treatments marginally extend its length and the single frame ‘grille’ up front gets new colour treatments, the overall look clings close to that of its predecessor.

Beneath the surface there’s greater range and efficiency from its two battery options, but it’s the interior that’s seen the biggest leap forward from the Q4 before it. Audi’s new curved ‘Digital Stage’ and optional passenger display parachute down from pricier models, accompanied by updated thinking on HMI and UX and the bond between them.

It lands at the same time as the Nuvolari supercar, one with a minimal, carefully judged interior that majors on physical controls and an environment that its design team bills as “a study in clarity and control where everything supports the act of driving”. CDN spoke to Audi interior design expert Matthieu Dupanloup about the changes he’s helped orchestrate within the Q4’s update. 

Car Design News: The Q4 e-tron is a very successful car. How do you go about changing it?

Matthieu Dupanloup: This is the bestseller of our electric portfolio but for us, it’s not a facelift, it’s a new car, because we have completely redefined the interior. We had to redefine all the surfaces, the ergonomics, the package, the technique. We saw an opportunity to let this Q4 benefit more from our other cars; we saw the possibility to implement our Digital Stage and introduce equipment you normally don't find in this segment, such as the passenger display.

CDN: How does it reflect more general trends in interior design?

MD: It’s general human behaviour to dive 100% into what's new. Maybe ten or 15 years ago we saw the possibility to bring way more digital content into the car. I think everyone, not only us, was trying to satisfy this demand for more generous digital content and larger screens. Now we are living in an era where it's not about having more or having bigger. It's about having the best ratio between digital content and physical analogue controls.

CDN: What is the path to achieving the best ratio?

MD: It can mean in terms of premium materials. It can also mean considering which commands make more sense to control digitally and which make more sense kept physical. A good example is the version of the new Q4 e-tron interior without the passenger screen. It’s for people who want to reduce the amount of digital content, to have more analogue substance. People that need more digital content can opt for the passenger screen.

CDN: How can you retain clean interior design with an increase in physical controls?

MD: A good example is how we have completely reworked our ventilation control system. There are some companies that have brought this digital control for the vents. We realised it’s not completely optimal because it can be hard to control while you are driving. Our new air vent control is, for us, a good ratio. It brings all the directions into one control, so you open, close or direct your vent while interacting with only one thing which remains physical and analogue. It offers more intuitiveness for the customer while helping us to look clean and modern.

CDN: Is there more work be done?

MD: It’s not about going fully forth or back. Looking forward would be only digital; looking backward would be only physical. It's about finding the best ratio, the best recipe. And that's sensitive. That's a challenge. As you can see with the Audi Concept C, for example, we are working with different scenarios. We are always generating a diversity of scenarios to test. We are also collecting feedback from the customers, the press, and so on, to help us decide which approach makes more sense.

CDN: Would it vary model to model? Perhaps more physical controls in driver-focused cars like the Nuvolari supercar?

MD: Sports cars – emotionally driven cars – are one side of the spectrum we have at Audi. Of course, we have way more typologies of vehicle and customers. The challenge for us is in generating enough emotional content while retaining enough flexibility to satisfy all those different use cases.

CDN: Has customer feedback led to the Q4’s reduced gloss black surfacing, too? 

MD: When an increase in screens came, having a large gloss black surface elsewhere made sense because it’s easier to be consistent across the overall interior; in the sections where you didn't have a screen, you could still have a glossy effect. We have listened to our customers [regarding this not being the most practical solution in everyday use]. We have also closely monitored the market and we believe that moving to different, more dust- and fingerprint-tolerant materials is a meaningful step for making our customers’ lives easier.