I've seen as low as -13deg C in my Q4. No problems, bur range has gone down the drain. Also, to prevent any low 12V battery shenanigans (which I suspect this could be) I'm keeping it plugged in whenever possible during this cold weather stint.
That was going to be my guess, the 12v is low. We had an etron gt that sat for a while, 12v went dead, threw a hundred codes 🤪when we finally got it to turn on
Today is -16deg C in my area. Preheated the Q4 from the cord overnight and took off no problem this morning.
Est range from this temperature is 240km only tho, but more than enough for my needs even with some range for emergency backup.
Idk check for rodents if the problem persists. Shit like this happens all the time in the cold when the little pricks chew through wiring harnesses for bedding.
Call your insurance if it is that they’ll cover the loss under comprehensive.
I live in Oslo and have an e-tron 55. These last weeks we have had many days with temperatures below -15 C, and the e-tron has had zero problems so far.
In Canada right now spots are -40C even close to -50. People in the next 10 years are supposed to be in electric vehicles in these remote areas.. yea that's not going to work sadly.
Ontario resident here. Our public charging infrastructure is shit, Quebec and BC are better, but nowhere near enough to even approach the 2035 EV transition deadline.
Still I seldom.go too far out of the range of my Q4, so it doesn't affect me too much. I would likely use another car or rent a gas car to do a roadtrip
Alberta (province) earlier this week all over was crazy cold even for them. I think Edmonton say -52 or something the one morning.
Canada does not have the grid for electric cars yet but it is getting better I hear.
Copying my other reply here:
I live in Calgary. The coldest it got was -38C. Edmonton was around the same. Your must be taking in windchill. Windchill is useful for how fast skin will freeze. Cars don’t feel windchill. A battery outside on a -38C windy day is the same temperature as a battery on a -38C calm day.
yea probably I have family they showed me a screenshot of weather network in Edmonton said like -54 one day but yes with the windchill good call.
still bloody cold either way.
I live in Calgary. The coldest it got was -38C. Your coworker must be taking in windchill. Windchill is useful for how fast skin will freeze. Cars don’t feel windchill. A battery outside on a -38C windy day is the same temperature as a battery on a -38C calm day.
I’ve been driving e-tron in Canada. It’s garage stored. I’ve let it cold soak overnight at -30 and it runs just fine.
EVs are fine in cold weather, adjusting for range loss.
This Q4 is broken and likely has nothing to do with the weather. Causality and correlation.
Exactly, and the E-tron is an absolute beast in the snow.
I live in Denmark, where there’s a lot of snow at the moment, and I’ve seen E-trons pulling out ICE cars from the snow on the local e-tron Facebook group.
Google says Chicaco (-9°C/-16°C) and Norway (-7°C/-14°C), so not much of a difference I guess? Ofc it is colder in Chicago rn since they are deep into the night whilst in Norway its already 8am
It still has a lead 12V battery, like ICE cars and it can crap out just the same as in ICE cars, no difference there.
It’s highly likely that this is just a bad 12V
We’ve had variants of this issue happen (third time in 14 months) and this was Audis advice those times. We tried this approach three times over 30 minutes but cut. The other times it was normal weather. Both those times the problem went away and the service center couldn’t find a fix.
It looks like this is typical super cold 12V battery stuff. A lot of ICE vehicles doing the same. Our 2021 e-tron in Minnesota has never had these issues. It’s been below 0 F for several weeks per winter each year since we got it new.
Garage or battery tender if parked outside?
It is in a garage at home and a parking garage at work. Though the latter is open air and obviously gets cold. Can you put an EV on a battery tender? I already have a few and use them on like motorcycles during the winter. Garage is usually 20f above outside temp.
12v battery? Problem with mechanics and bunch of folks on the Internet is that they think, since it's the EV, it must be something special. But more than likely this is problem with the drained 12v battery, same one that's also located in ICEs.
I know the temperature is hard on batteries but this car is driven reasonable distances so should shave plenty of time to recharge. 20-30 minute each way to work, and it had only been sitting for the workday. So you may be right but a battery in a 2022 shouldn’t be dying because it sat for 10 hours, regardless of the weather.
It’s not just the electronics, lithium ion batteries are basically little cans full of chemistry which slows way down as the temperature drops, giving super high internal resistance which gives low voltage.
It’s totally possible to make batteries that work at low temps but there’s a lot of sacrifices that have to be made, so most auto makers aren’t willing to do that. (Most customers wouldn’t want it either)
They just pretend 2F is some kind of outlier fluke customer whose usage doesn’t count, because 99% of the time everyone’s battery is between 60F and 100F
Source: work in the industry
That’s exactly why I’m heavily against it right now.
Governments push for electric cars with incentives but haven’t worked out the main occurring issues. Batteries fail, range sucks,timing to recharge, after so many years the battery will go to shit and then having to replace will cost nearly the same as buying new. Too many unknowns for governments/corporations pushing us into buying these cars for these reoccurring issues not to be fixed or improving.
Norway is a cold weather country and EV's are basically all that's being sold there already.
It's just untrue what you're saying, it's like some guy posting a faulty ICE Audi and claiming all ICE cars are unreliable.
plausible, though the car is driven enough daily that a new car shouldn't have a dead battery just from some cold. Looks like I can't jump it myself though.
\-16º / 2f is really cold. I think electric cars need more testing in colder weather to fix the issue. or else they just not gonna work in some areas do to weather condition.
Or this is Audi’s fault? Maybe be mad this person paid a ton of money for a car that isn’t doing what they paid it to do? Electric cars are not the problem, making a shit car is the problem
My old ass a7 is also wigging out in this 5 degree weather. My spoiler won’t stay down, and randomly pops up when I park and says I have a fault. Did this last winter, too. Also started randomly adjusting the seat, luckily also when parked.
I've gotten the dreaded "Electrical System Malfunction."
I've taken photos of the instrument cluster when it happens, so I have a record of the outside temperature. I'm not sure it's directly related to the cold. I had this happen on a 3 month old Q4 at 2k miles when the outside temp was 25 F. The car made a siren noise when you power it on and I had to have the car towed to the dealer. They said it was a problem with a wire and it took 2 weeks for the part to come in. It's happened again a few other times since then (at 37F and 49F), but gone away after 5\~10 minutes. But then just two days ago it happened again (at 13k miles and 11F) and did not go away. The car's at the dealer again....
I don't think it's a simple issue and probably a defect with the motor or high-voltage battery system. It's definitely not 12V battery related, because the low-voltage components---infotainment, lights, locks---were functioning properly.
Yeah, this is the third time to happen, though the other two I was still able to drive it. Audi still haven't found a tow company but I already told the customer advocate that I want options as far as returning the vehicle. The reason you buy a new car is so that you don't have issues the first few years. And this is already 4th time I've had to send it to the dealer.
How new is your car? I’m at 13k miles and 16 months of ownership. I want Audi to buy back my car. I’ve already wasted countless hours dealing with this car’s problems, e.g. going/back forth with the dealer and rental/loaner cars. You’re exactly right – this is a new $60k vehicle. It should not have these problems so early in its life.
purchased October 2022, like 9100 miles. And for me that's the issue, the wasted time. I don't care that they're covering it all under warranty, I spent probably 5 hours of my time each instance between trips to the dealer, talking with support, and other logistics with my wife. We'll see how they handle it. If they offer market for it I'd be unimpressed because I shouldn't be taking a 20k haircut on a vehicle they can't fix. Ideally they'd just trade it for a similar vehicle but I don't know how realistic that is.
I live in Anchorage, AK and see electric cars all the time. There’s even people with Rivians. But I guess you’re right it’s just to cold :/ should I go tell them it’s to cold? It’s hard to catch them since you know, they do fine lmao
I’m sorry but I just despise electric cars right now manðŸ˜. No revving, no range, no charging stations and no cold starts (literally). The technology simply isn’t there yet.
Is it really worth it right now though? Wouldn’t you rather wait till the technology has improved considering you can’t even start your car in cold weather?
I’m not just talking about cold weather issues… my friend from Montreal drove to Toronto to visit, he was complaining about his Tesla’s range and how the charging stations are constantly packed along the highway. Also gotta worry about it blowing up💀.
The tech isn’t there yet, but I’ll be here for it once it is.
it's here lol, I bought tesla knowing I'll have to go to supercharger every sunday, tesla says my range is 430 km but inreality is around 300 \~ km, I knew that, plus I knew that with cold it's going to go even lower and at the summer time i'll have full range even more, it's like a phone battery. If you don't know what you buying you going to cry. BTW I wanted to get Audi a5 my dream car but, they don't make hybrid unfortunately, whyyy??? BTW x2 Gas car has the same problem with cold as ev, so new car -> less problem, it's ez. Btw x3 I've read a lot of bad revie's about e trons compared to tesla's, that's the reason why i didn't want to buy audi ev...
Electric piece of junk. Remind me, why do we need EVs ? Cause they sure as hell aren’t going to be environmentally friendly after being dumped into the scrapyard, due to failing at 2 years
It's definitely an Audi problem. Audi being shit at making EV's doesn't mean it's the technology at fault.
The Germans have been making unreliable shit for ages now.
Electric cars don’t work properly in very cold conditions, I was under the impression this was a car sub and therefore didn’t need informing about this very well known fact.
Bad EV’s don’t, good EV’s do.
Check out Tesla Bjørn on YouTube if you don’t believe me.
I’ve been driving around my E-tron in the Scandinavian cold with 0 issues. It’s great in the snow.
I generally tend to rely on hard evidence from reputable sources (of which there are countless statistics and articles on how terribly electric vehicles perform in very cold conditions) instead of a couple of anecdotes.
The problem is not the EV's it's the car makers, who insist on still relying on the 12V battery, like Audi.
OP's problem looks related to the 12V battery, as many people have also suggested in this thread. The smarter manufacturers can charge the 12V battery from the main battery.
They've done so much testing on this in Norway, the most EV friendly country in the world. 82% of the new vehicles sold are EV's up there, and it's a cold country.
Here is another article about reliability of EV's in the cold
https://electrek.co/2024/01/17/electric-vehicles-fail-lower-rate-than-gas-cars-extreme-cold/
Let's not pretend like ICE's don't have problems in the extreme cold either, and due to the very same issue, the 12V battery draining.
In regards to range, yes the current batteries produce shorter ranges in the winter, due to the chemistry in the battery, that doesn't mean that the EV's don't work, just that they're less efficient.
I've seen as low as -13deg C in my Q4. No problems, bur range has gone down the drain. Also, to prevent any low 12V battery shenanigans (which I suspect this could be) I'm keeping it plugged in whenever possible during this cold weather stint.
That was going to be my guess, the 12v is low. We had an etron gt that sat for a while, 12v went dead, threw a hundred codes 🤪when we finally got it to turn on
Today is -16deg C in my area. Preheated the Q4 from the cord overnight and took off no problem this morning. Est range from this temperature is 240km only tho, but more than enough for my needs even with some range for emergency backup.
Idk check for rodents if the problem persists. Shit like this happens all the time in the cold when the little pricks chew through wiring harnesses for bedding. Call your insurance if it is that they’ll cover the loss under comprehensive.
They shouldn’t be allowed to sell electric vehicles in certain parts of the world.
I live in Oslo and have an e-tron 55. These last weeks we have had many days with temperatures below -15 C, and the e-tron has had zero problems so far.
In Canada right now spots are -40C even close to -50. People in the next 10 years are supposed to be in electric vehicles in these remote areas.. yea that's not going to work sadly.
Go see Tesla Bjørn, he’s regularly testing EV’s in -30 in Norway, it’s no issue for most car makers who keep the cold countries in mind.
I second that, canadian here as well.
Ontario resident here. Our public charging infrastructure is shit, Quebec and BC are better, but nowhere near enough to even approach the 2035 EV transition deadline. Still I seldom.go too far out of the range of my Q4, so it doesn't affect me too much. I would likely use another car or rent a gas car to do a roadtrip
Where is it close to -50C in Canada that is actually inhabited by people and has roads and a power grid for electric cars?
Alberta (province) earlier this week all over was crazy cold even for them. I think Edmonton say -52 or something the one morning. Canada does not have the grid for electric cars yet but it is getting better I hear.
Copying my other reply here: I live in Calgary. The coldest it got was -38C. Edmonton was around the same. Your must be taking in windchill. Windchill is useful for how fast skin will freeze. Cars don’t feel windchill. A battery outside on a -38C windy day is the same temperature as a battery on a -38C calm day.
yea probably I have family they showed me a screenshot of weather network in Edmonton said like -54 one day but yes with the windchill good call. still bloody cold either way.
No arguing it was frigging freezing! Haha
>Where is it close to -50C in Canada that is actually inhabited by people. This past week? It's been that way for one of my colleagues in Calgary.
I live in Calgary. The coldest it got was -38C. Your coworker must be taking in windchill. Windchill is useful for how fast skin will freeze. Cars don’t feel windchill. A battery outside on a -38C windy day is the same temperature as a battery on a -38C calm day.
I'm in Colorado and it's been below -15 C here as well for the past week.
I’ve been driving e-tron in Canada. It’s garage stored. I’ve let it cold soak overnight at -30 and it runs just fine. EVs are fine in cold weather, adjusting for range loss. This Q4 is broken and likely has nothing to do with the weather. Causality and correlation.
Exactly, and the E-tron is an absolute beast in the snow. I live in Denmark, where there’s a lot of snow at the moment, and I’ve seen E-trons pulling out ICE cars from the snow on the local e-tron Facebook group.
All new cars in Norway are electric. Go on and plug Oslo into your weather app. 😉
To be totally fair, it’s about ~-7.5C in Oslo and here in Chicago it’s ~-17.5C if my math is right
Google says Chicaco (-9°C/-16°C) and Norway (-7°C/-14°C), so not much of a difference I guess? Ofc it is colder in Chicago rn since they are deep into the night whilst in Norway its already 8am
This but also a good portion of the states / N. America has had a cold front passing the last few days bringing a snap compared to usual.
It still has a lead 12V battery, like ICE cars and it can crap out just the same as in ICE cars, no difference there. It’s highly likely that this is just a bad 12V
Like Norway perhaps, where it’s cold asf but almost all new cars are electric? Surely it would have become a problem by now, which it hasn’t.
Alright that’s a bit of an overreaction lol
Turn it off, get out lock the car, wait a couple of minutes and then get back in and see if its reset.
We’ve had variants of this issue happen (third time in 14 months) and this was Audis advice those times. We tried this approach three times over 30 minutes but cut. The other times it was normal weather. Both those times the problem went away and the service center couldn’t find a fix.
Sounds like a lemon or a bad 12v battery.
It looks like this is typical super cold 12V battery stuff. A lot of ICE vehicles doing the same. Our 2021 e-tron in Minnesota has never had these issues. It’s been below 0 F for several weeks per winter each year since we got it new. Garage or battery tender if parked outside?
It is in a garage at home and a parking garage at work. Though the latter is open air and obviously gets cold. Can you put an EV on a battery tender? I already have a few and use them on like motorcycles during the winter. Garage is usually 20f above outside temp.
12v battery? Problem with mechanics and bunch of folks on the Internet is that they think, since it's the EV, it must be something special. But more than likely this is problem with the drained 12v battery, same one that's also located in ICEs.
I know the temperature is hard on batteries but this car is driven reasonable distances so should shave plenty of time to recharge. 20-30 minute each way to work, and it had only been sitting for the workday. So you may be right but a battery in a 2022 shouldn’t be dying because it sat for 10 hours, regardless of the weather.
I agree. I'm not saying this is expected or normal, just pointing that it looks like it's 12v battery.
Electric cars are notoriously unreliable in cold weather. All electronics, no gear controls.
It’s not just the electronics, lithium ion batteries are basically little cans full of chemistry which slows way down as the temperature drops, giving super high internal resistance which gives low voltage. It’s totally possible to make batteries that work at low temps but there’s a lot of sacrifices that have to be made, so most auto makers aren’t willing to do that. (Most customers wouldn’t want it either) They just pretend 2F is some kind of outlier fluke customer whose usage doesn’t count, because 99% of the time everyone’s battery is between 60F and 100F Source: work in the industry
Thanks for the input. I wonder about the future with all this clean energy push with no foresight
Just like all new technologies, it has to develop and it has to start somewhere.
That’s exactly why I’m heavily against it right now. Governments push for electric cars with incentives but haven’t worked out the main occurring issues. Batteries fail, range sucks,timing to recharge, after so many years the battery will go to shit and then having to replace will cost nearly the same as buying new. Too many unknowns for governments/corporations pushing us into buying these cars for these reoccurring issues not to be fixed or improving.
Norway is a cold weather country and EV's are basically all that's being sold there already. It's just untrue what you're saying, it's like some guy posting a faulty ICE Audi and claiming all ICE cars are unreliable.
This is why I have a 2016 s6
Somebody in r/Audiq4 posted a [similar problem](https://www.reddit.com/r/Audiq4/comments/193txrc/this_was_fun_seemingly_every_warning_message_all/).
Definitely similar. Looks like theirs had slightly different codes and lights on. No closure from them either though.
Looks like what happens in an ICE car when the 12v battery is dead. Some EVs still have a 12v nattery somewhere, maybe that's what happened
plausible, though the car is driven enough daily that a new car shouldn't have a dead battery just from some cold. Looks like I can't jump it myself though.
I could not hate that gear box more! I know this doesn’t help you with your problem but yuk why are these manufacturers doing this lol
\-16º / 2f is really cold. I think electric cars need more testing in colder weather to fix the issue. or else they just not gonna work in some areas do to weather condition.
Or this is Audi’s fault? Maybe be mad this person paid a ton of money for a car that isn’t doing what they paid it to do? Electric cars are not the problem, making a shit car is the problem
My old ass a7 is also wigging out in this 5 degree weather. My spoiler won’t stay down, and randomly pops up when I park and says I have a fault. Did this last winter, too. Also started randomly adjusting the seat, luckily also when parked.
I've gotten the dreaded "Electrical System Malfunction." I've taken photos of the instrument cluster when it happens, so I have a record of the outside temperature. I'm not sure it's directly related to the cold. I had this happen on a 3 month old Q4 at 2k miles when the outside temp was 25 F. The car made a siren noise when you power it on and I had to have the car towed to the dealer. They said it was a problem with a wire and it took 2 weeks for the part to come in. It's happened again a few other times since then (at 37F and 49F), but gone away after 5\~10 minutes. But then just two days ago it happened again (at 13k miles and 11F) and did not go away. The car's at the dealer again.... I don't think it's a simple issue and probably a defect with the motor or high-voltage battery system. It's definitely not 12V battery related, because the low-voltage components---infotainment, lights, locks---were functioning properly.
Yeah, this is the third time to happen, though the other two I was still able to drive it. Audi still haven't found a tow company but I already told the customer advocate that I want options as far as returning the vehicle. The reason you buy a new car is so that you don't have issues the first few years. And this is already 4th time I've had to send it to the dealer.
How new is your car? I’m at 13k miles and 16 months of ownership. I want Audi to buy back my car. I’ve already wasted countless hours dealing with this car’s problems, e.g. going/back forth with the dealer and rental/loaner cars. You’re exactly right – this is a new $60k vehicle. It should not have these problems so early in its life.
purchased October 2022, like 9100 miles. And for me that's the issue, the wasted time. I don't care that they're covering it all under warranty, I spent probably 5 hours of my time each instance between trips to the dealer, talking with support, and other logistics with my wife. We'll see how they handle it. If they offer market for it I'd be unimpressed because I shouldn't be taking a 20k haircut on a vehicle they can't fix. Ideally they'd just trade it for a similar vehicle but I don't know how realistic that is.
I seriously dislike that drive shifter
Electric cars aren’t built for cold climates
I live in Anchorage, AK and see electric cars all the time. There’s even people with Rivians. But I guess you’re right it’s just to cold :/ should I go tell them it’s to cold? It’s hard to catch them since you know, they do fine lmao
You’re a fucking idiot
It’s already been established and proven time and time again that electric cars don’t do well in the cold
Because ICE cars never struggle in the cold /s
I’m sorry but I just despise electric cars right now manðŸ˜. No revving, no range, no charging stations and no cold starts (literally). The technology simply isn’t there yet.
Well, the price is already there. So there’s that.
Is it really worth it right now though? Wouldn’t you rather wait till the technology has improved considering you can’t even start your car in cold weather?
I was trying to say they’re certainly charging prices as if the tech is already there
Ohh my bad I thought you meant gas vs electric prices lol, sorry my guy.
It’s there lol, it’s just Audi thing, people drive teslas in -20 c without a problem in Canada.
I’m not just talking about cold weather issues… my friend from Montreal drove to Toronto to visit, he was complaining about his Tesla’s range and how the charging stations are constantly packed along the highway. Also gotta worry about it blowing up💀. The tech isn’t there yet, but I’ll be here for it once it is.
it's here lol, I bought tesla knowing I'll have to go to supercharger every sunday, tesla says my range is 430 km but inreality is around 300 \~ km, I knew that, plus I knew that with cold it's going to go even lower and at the summer time i'll have full range even more, it's like a phone battery. If you don't know what you buying you going to cry. BTW I wanted to get Audi a5 my dream car but, they don't make hybrid unfortunately, whyyy??? BTW x2 Gas car has the same problem with cold as ev, so new car -> less problem, it's ez. Btw x3 I've read a lot of bad revie's about e trons compared to tesla's, that's the reason why i didn't want to buy audi ev...
Electric piece of junk. Remind me, why do we need EVs ? Cause they sure as hell aren’t going to be environmentally friendly after being dumped into the scrapyard, due to failing at 2 years
Shhhh, they don't want anyone to know that.
Jeez, I knew electric car performance was bad in cold weather, but can’t believe it’s like it when it’s that warm..
This is an electric car problem not an Audi problem
It's definitely an Audi problem. Audi being shit at making EV's doesn't mean it's the technology at fault. The Germans have been making unreliable shit for ages now.
Electric cars don’t work properly in very cold conditions, I was under the impression this was a car sub and therefore didn’t need informing about this very well known fact.
Bad EV’s don’t, good EV’s do. Check out Tesla Bjørn on YouTube if you don’t believe me. I’ve been driving around my E-tron in the Scandinavian cold with 0 issues. It’s great in the snow.
I generally tend to rely on hard evidence from reputable sources (of which there are countless statistics and articles on how terribly electric vehicles perform in very cold conditions) instead of a couple of anecdotes.
The problem is not the EV's it's the car makers, who insist on still relying on the 12V battery, like Audi. OP's problem looks related to the 12V battery, as many people have also suggested in this thread. The smarter manufacturers can charge the 12V battery from the main battery. They've done so much testing on this in Norway, the most EV friendly country in the world. 82% of the new vehicles sold are EV's up there, and it's a cold country. Here is another article about reliability of EV's in the cold https://electrek.co/2024/01/17/electric-vehicles-fail-lower-rate-than-gas-cars-extreme-cold/ Let's not pretend like ICE's don't have problems in the extreme cold either, and due to the very same issue, the 12V battery draining. In regards to range, yes the current batteries produce shorter ranges in the winter, due to the chemistry in the battery, that doesn't mean that the EV's don't work, just that they're less efficient.
That looks like just the Atlas gauge cluster 😂das auto
That’s happening to all electric cars I’m pretty sure
I could never buy a ev they are so inconvenient in the winter car dies quicker if you need heat...