2020 Q5 55 TSFIe running for 3 days on petrol only & 0% battery (on holiday and no rechargers available). On start up 4th day got Drive System error warning message but proceeded with 45 mile journey. Car was generally OK by noticed it sluggish uphills and Power meter wouldn't go above 25-30% even in Sport mode. Also cruise control inoperable. Also Power Recuperating/Recovery meter didn't register when braking or decelerating (meter stayed at 0%).

Noticed Charge level indicator was registering 50% halfway into trip and continued to rise until end of journey it was on 100%.

On restarting car 4 hours later, it showed 100% Power Meter with 28 mile range (normal). Hybrid mode worked fine all the way home, power back to normal and Cruise Control working.

Next day still all OK, no warning messages and 30% left in battery (Running mainly on Battery Save Mode).

I understood Power Recuperating was only good for small %'age of battery reclaim during braking & deceleration so how is it possible I've recuperated 100% in 45 mile trip. NB - I've travelling 300+ miles since last mains recharge 6 days ago!!

Got pea e if mind you could get a diagnostic check to see if any fault codes flag up. 

Alternatively give it another week to see how you get on. 

Couldn’t it recharge from the engine? I can do that (switch mode to charge up battery) but it destroys the mpg

Thanks for your response, much appreciated.

re: charge up from battery - Not seen this mode to be honest.

Everything I've read suggests that it doesn't recharge from the engine, only from re-gen braking and this will only be few %'age not fully charge from empty, which is what I had

Might be different for the 55tfsie (have the 50tfsie which can definitely charge from the engine). It’s one of the options in the drive mode (the EV button) of which there are 4- pure EV, hybrid, preserve battery capacity, and charge up battery.

your description sounds like the charge up battery mode got enabled.

Thanks again. 

Checked car and manual and mine only had 3 options: EV, Hybrid & battery hold. 

I'll keep digging as I'm still confused.

BTW since this happened once back in June, it's not reoccurred & car's been faultless. 

Cheers. 

 

I read somewhere that the “charge up battery” option is not available in the US due to some regulations. So the capability is always there, Audi just disables it. So perhaps it got enabled on your car through some glitch.

Very interesting,  more and more confusing though!!

Confusing look into this. 

BTW - are you US based and therefore see this option?

Thanks again for great feedback. 

Cheers. 

 

no… bought it in Essex 😜 i think it may also be year dependent

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/q5-sq5-mkii-discussion-218/q5e-does-not-actively-charge-battery-just-engine-running-driving-t-f-3018704/
 

“It will charge in S-mode when decelerating and in ROW the MY 2021 Q5e got an additional option to charge the HV battery while driving - not in the US MY 2021 though.”

Hi all, thought I'd give you update on my original post. Had the car serviced last month and reported the charging issue. Nothing showed on diagnostics. Had lengthy conversation with chief mechanic who confirmed the car cannot fully charge from engine and was honestly at a loss to explain what I'd experienced. Did say that lengthy running on zero battery can cause some intermittent errors including loss of cruise control (which I had). Said that even if it could charge from engine, my 45 minute journey wouldn't have been sufficient to provide 100% charge I'd experienced. So overall, total mystery but thankfully not reoccurred.