Long-term report: Hybrid power comes to the fore in the Audi A6 Avant

As the months roll on with our A6, I’m pleased to say it’s settled into my life very comfortably indeed. Now I admit, I’m not the perfect candidate for a PHEV – I’ve got nowhere to charge it for starters – but despite that, I’m still enjoying a lot of the benefits of the A6’s hybrid traits.

I know it might seem a bit wasteful to be hauling around a massive 20kWh battery when you’re not actually charging it, but actually, the A6 does a surprisingly good job of doing that itself. After an hour or so on a motorway run, it’s not unusual to discover – as if by magic – a few miles of electric range have appeared on the Audi’s digital dials.

That’s actually pretty handy when, inevitably, you find yourself stuck in a stop-start traffic jam for example. Having such an enormous battery means the A6 can happily crawl along, air conditioning on, for what seems like forever without needing to rouse the petrol engine at all.

The benefits of that are starting to become pretty obvious. Without going near a plug, I’m managing around 40mpg on a mix of motorways and A-roads – which for a petrol-powered car weighing 2.2 tonnes, I don’t think is bad going.

I’m telling myself this is good consumer journalism, because even if you do have a means to charge your PHEV – as most buyers will – there’s always a point at which you’ll find yourself driving with no charge at all. In some plug-in hybrids, that’s the moment the shine really starts to fade. It’s surprising how clunky, slow and jerky a petrol-powered car can feel when the electrical assistance runs out.

Happily, the A6 doesn’t seem to have this problem. Firstly, it’s very hard to completely run out of electricity – the car is clever enough to hold a little in reserve, just enough to get you up to 10mph, or fill in the gaps between gear changes. Secondly, even without any help from the electric motors, then A6’s gearbox is smooth and quick to change, and the turbocharged 2.0-litre engine is pretty torquey in the first place.

It must be said, sticking a four-cylinder petrol engine in a car like this doesn’t lead to a particularly premium soundtrack. It all just feels a little bit coarse, most noticeably when you’re trying to get the A6 up to speed – and perhaps that’s to be expected given the amount of mass it needs to shift. It’s not intolerable by any means, I just wish they’d injected a little more Golf R or Audi S3 noise into proceedings – it’s the same engine, after all.

As for when you do plug it in, things get even better. Officially, Audi says the A6 e-hybrid will manage as much as 70 miles on pure electric – not the best, but reasonably competitive nonetheless. We’ve not managed more than about 60 in the real world, but what’s more impressive is how the A6 behaves on battery power alone.

The e-hybrid is happy to be hustled along a country lane, or accelerate up to motorway speeds at surprising pace before the petrol engine kicks in. That’s mostly to do with the electric motor Audi has used – all 141bhp of it, if you must know – but also aided by some clever throttle pedal mapping. In everyday ‘balanced’ driving mode at least, the car stops you accidentally straying into petrol power when you don’t need to – it’s only with a real purposeful stab of the accelerator that you’ll awaken the engine.

In short, it all feels like properly engineered bit of kit – as a £70,000 Audi should you might argue. It would be very easy to drive the e-hybrid around entirely on cheap, overnight electricity, if you so desired. When the battery runs out though, it’s far from the miserable experience you’ll find in plenty of PHEVs currently on sale.