With more than 10pc of Audis sold in Ireland last year being electric, it’s clear that Volkswagen’s premium brand is playing its part in the push by the group towards an all-electric future, writes Brian Byrne. Nearly half of those sales were of the Q4 e-tron, the newest and smaller of the three Audi EVs available. My review car is newer still, as the Sportback version of the Q4 e-tron, and I was quite taken with the softer rear roofline compared to the full SUV version’s. It has the style of a coupe liftback, but without sacrificing any of the passenger space, and only mildly diminishing boot capacity. In size it not surprisingly is close to the VW ID.5 equivalent and a bit more compact than key competitor Hyundai’s Ioniq 5. I thought the car’s shape was very well displayed in the non-metallic grey — they call it Pebblestone — of the review car. The Q4 e-tron stylists held on to the sense of a grille front end, which I still think gives an EV more presence than some of the flat front