Everything you need to know about the advanced infotainment system of the new Audi Q6 e-tron

It has taken its time, but it will finally be this very summer when the first units of the Q6 e-tron start rolling along European roads. The new Premium SUV from the four-ring brand will reach the market debuting the new PPE platform –Premium Platform Electric-, developed exclusively for electric vehicles together with Porsche, and which it will share precisely with the new electric Macan. This will not, however, be the only technological advance found in this new model from Audi; its OLED light units and its innovative infotainment system are just a couple of further examples.

In this article we are going to focus on delving into the details of the latter.

The dawn of a new era for Audi

When we take the wheel of the new Q6 e-tron, we will immediately realise that we are not in control of a conventional vehicle. Two OLED screens measuring 11.9 and 14.5 inches, placed right in front of us and wrapping around us, will be in charge of showing us the whole technological arsenal hidden in this new Premium SUV from Audi. The four-ring brand has wanted the driver to be the main protagonist, reserving these two screens exclusively for him. That is why, optionally, it is possible to fit a third screen, in this case exclusively for the front passenger seated beside him.

It would not, however, be the first vehicle to draw attention through the integration of large screens or a good number of them, only to disappoint with clumsy, outdated and unintuitive software, delivering a dreadful user experience. This is not the case with the new Q6 e-tron, thanks to the use for the first time in a Audi model of Android Automotive as the basis for its infotainment system.

According to the Ingolstadt company, the brand’s engineering team decided to bet on Android because it is a platform popular among developers, which will allow customers to enjoy a greater number of applications. Already at the market launch of the new Q6 e-tron, in the Audi App Store there will be around forty applications available, including YouTube, Zoom, or games as popular as Beach Buggy Racer, to name just a few examples. Over the coming months, this figure should keep growing, allowing owners of this new electric SUV to enjoy new experiences.

Audi has also drastically improved the vehicle’s voice assistant. Although it does not rely on the artificial intelligence of ChatGPT as its sister brand Volkswagen has done in the ID.7, the company asserts that it is capable of responding to more than 800 commands, most of them new. But that is not all: this new assistant is far more advanced because it is able to make suggestions based on the driver’s previous actions.

Traditional car manufacturers have had to adapt to the new reality, in which software makes the difference

After the many criticisms they have received over their software in recent years, some of the Group Volkswagen’s electric models, such as the ID.3, the new Q6 e-tron appears to be a very important step forward in the right direction, whose results should spread to other new models in the group. This has been possible thanks to the intensive work carried out by the engineers at Cariad, the Group Volkswagen’s Software Division, which has enabled the Q6 e-tron to debut the new E3 electronic architecture, which the new electric Porsche Macan will also feature.

According to Cariad, E3 is a far more centralised computing system, making it possible to update virtually any vehicle component via software. That is precisely why the Q6 e-tron will be the first Audi model to support full OTA software updates, which will not be limited exclusively to adding or modifying certain specific functions. A feature introduced by Tesla in the automotive sector some years ago, which all manufacturers now want to follow.