Battery needs to be charged to start ignition on 2023 hybrid

[Tracey McDonald]

I have just joined this forum and can't see any similar post, so apologies if there are.

It's a bit long to explain so bare with me.☺️

I have just got a 2023 Q3 Sportback 45 TFSI e (Petrol Hybrid). Having had the BMW 330 e plug in hybrid previously, I was told 18 months when I looked at it that they worked the same. I ran there BMW as a petrol car in Hybrid mode as it was self charging and because it only got about 20miles too a full charge, it wasn't worth running in Electric mode.I do long journeys for my job.

When I got the Q3, nothing was explained to me about how the hybrid engine works, as it is a lease car so didn't collect from dealer. Not that it matters when I explain the issue as follows:

I worked out from the manual the drive modes, something like "Electric, Auto Hybrid, Charge Battery and Battery save". So I put it in Auto Hybrid with some charge in the battery. After a days journey, the electric charge was at zero but I didn't think anything of it until the next day after another shortish journey. When I got back into the car the message came up on the dash saying something like, "Battery charge empty, engine may not start, battery will charge when driving". I called Audi Tech support as I didn't know what was happening and was able to start the engine and they said that shouldn't come up and advised I contacted my local Audi dealer. I went in today and they said the engine has to have battery charge to start. There is a small residual when the charge shows zero, which was why I could start the engine but eventually the battery will not start the engine if I don't charge it somehow. So this is not a self charge Hybrid as I thought.🤨

I do not want to pay for a charge point at my home and can't stretch a power lead from the house to the car nor do I have electric in the garage, so I can't charge at home. The only option I seem to have is to use the "Charge battery" mode when I am driving, but this uses loads of fuel. Also, as soon as you switch air con on, the battery immediately drops by about 3 miles.🥺 Full charge is only about 39 miles anyway and takes 3 plus hours apparently to charge from a charge station, so I can't see me doing that either. What a pain.

The other thing I don't know is what happens to the battery charge if the car isn't driven for a period of time, like if on holiday for 2 weeks. How long does the battery charge last for? In winter will there battery deplete over night as well as my BMW used to and if so then I can't start the car.......

The sales person at Audi said they had to get recovery out for lots of people who had courtesy cars as they didn't realise this either.

Anyone know about this and have any suggestions please?🥺

 

 

 

 

[Itspointless]

That sounds a bit fishy to me. 

I've owned a couple of hybrids but not plug in and in auto mode they have managed the battery charge quite well. The last I had was a lexus and that manged the battery charge on regenerative braking alone.

It also had a separate 12v battery to start the engine in the event the battery pack was depleted.

If you never intend to plug it in maybe you should consider exchanging it for a non plug in hybrid.