Audi will be offering a major software update for the Q4 E-Tron through dealers in 2022. After all, the Audi does not need a new 12-volt battery.
Because VW is calling all existing vehicles of the ID.3 and ID.4 models to the workshops as part of a voluntary service campaign in preparation for the major update to ID. Software 3.0, it is reasonable to assume that this will apply to all battery-electric vehicles in the foreseeable future, which are based on the Group’s modular electrical construction kit (MEB). And at least Audi has now confirmed such plans for the Q4 E-Tron to auto-motor-und-sport.de. However, under different circumstances than at VW.
No new battery, but new software
This means that some of the existing Q4 vehicles will still receive an invitation in 2022 to have a new software version installed on the car in the authorized workshop. Why not all Q4 E-Tron? This is partly due to the late “birth” of the electric Audi. It came onto the market later than the VW ID.3 and ID.4 and therefore started with a much more up-to-date software version (2.3). Since March 2022, all-new Q4 E-Tron has had software version 3.0 installed during production. Throughout 2022the existing vehicles should then also be offered the opportunity to have a new software version installed at the dealership. Replacing the 12-volt battery, as in the VW sister models, is not necessary with the Audi. However, this has less to do with the battery itself and much more to do with the different electronic architecture of the Audi Q4 E-Tron.
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Audi uses the older electronics architecture
Because the so-called MIB3 platform is used in the Audi and not the ICAS3 structure like the ID models from VW, the Q4 E-Tron is not OTA-updatable in-depth like its VW siblings. And because for this reason there are no OTA software updates that take several hours, the Audi does not need a new 12-volt battery. E-Tron customers are already familiar with the issue of updates from dealers. The big E-Tron also got the last big update, which, among other things, brought more range, only at the dealer.
Audi will also send some of the Q4 E-Tron that have already been delivered to the dealers to install the next major software update. Unlike VW, this is not a bug but was never intended otherwise from the beginning. XXL OTA updates simply don’t work with the Ingolstadt company’s “old” MIB3 electronics kit. It has long been decided whether it is smart in the long term to operate different electronics architectures in a group on the same battery-electric platform. In the future, the Group vehicles will no longer differ in terms of axles and drive trains, but only in terms of the generations of electronic architecture used.
