Enlarge / The Audi Q4 e-tron is available in two body styles—this is the Sportback variant. (credit: Audi)

LOS ANGELES, CALIF.—When Dieselgate made headlines in 2014, it fundamentally changed how Volkswagen Group and its associated sub-brands, from Volkswagen to Lamborghini, had to think about cars. Diesel got a big black mark, and electric vehicles got a much-needed bump in the race for a more sustainable way to meet the ever-growing demand for personal transportation.

The scandal accelerated Volkswagen’s push to go completely electric by 2033 and encouraged investment in a US network of EV chargers ( which still leave a lot to be desired ), but the rollout of the EVs themselves has been slow, to say the least.

Audi, one of the VW Group’s luxury automakers, has been slowly rolling out a suite of new EVs that began with the e-tron SUV, the e-tron Sportback , and the e-tron GT sport tourer and most recently includes the Q4 e-tron in both typical crossover and Sportback form. The Q4 e-tron was announced in February of 2021 and was originally slated to make its stateside debut in mid- to late-2021.

Enlarge (credit: Andrew Hedrick/Porsche)

As I'm fond of saying, electric motors just make cars better. Regular readers will notice that most of our automotive coverage is about electrified cars, but the other kind still represents more than 95 percent of all new cars sold in the US, so we have reason to drive a few of those from time to time as well. And when we do, it's often an exercise in frustration—even a performance car like a Porsche 911 Turbo can't match the immediate slug of torque from an electric motor doing its thing.

And that's good. Electric cars need to be the future of personal transportation if we want to avert the worst ravages of climate change, albeit only alongside everyone walking, cycling, and taking public transport more. (We could do with a comprehensive redesign of our built environment to make all that safer, too, but I realize I'm veering dangerously into a post-scarcity utopia there, whereas it currently looks like we're in the Mirror Universe .)

But the uncomfortable truth for the EV-loving driving enthusiast is that while EVs make perfect sense for getting from A to B—absent the occasional edge-case like an emergency cross-country trombone delivery—I'm not sure they're quite there yet when it comes to that last bit of fun.

Enlarge / A 2021 VW ID.4, the brand's battery-electric crossover. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Volkswagen, the world’s second-largest electric vehicle manufacturer by volume, has “sold out” of battery-powered models in the US and Europe for this year as persistent supply chain bottlenecks hit global production.

The Wolfsburg-based group, which includes brands such as Porsche, Audi and Škoda, sold more than 99,000 electric models worldwide in the first three months of 2022 as it was hit by a shortage of semiconductors and wiring harnesses made in Ukraine.

Market leader Tesla delivered more than three times that number in the same quarter.