A Short Drive in the 2015 Audi A3 E-tron

What could possibly make that situation better? If the 2015 Audi A3 E-Tron, a plug-in hybrid that Audi showed off at the Los Angeles Auto Show, has anything to say about it, the answer is batteries. The A3 E-Tron’s electric motor handles the around-town stuff, while its turbocharged 1.4-liter gasoline engine takes care of heavy acceleration and longer distance travel.

I drove one during rush hour, so there wasn’t much opportunity to put the car through its paces. But that experience gave valuable insight into what it would be like to drive one in a crowded metropolitan area.

Sitting at red lights — of which there were many — the engine shut down and the car was quiet. Under normal acceleration, the electric motor, which is sandwiched between the engine and transmission, moved the car silently.

During those brief moments when I saw the road open up ahead and was able to put more pressure on the accelerator pedal, the electric motor twisted the wheels quickly through the low end, leaving the top end of the r.p.m. range to the high-revving turbo gasoline engine. When I floored it, the gas engine kicked in, too, and the A3 E-Tron took off pretty quickly for such a small car.

Audi says that’s because when you mash the go pedal, the car enters “boost” mode, giving the car the full power of both its 148-horsepower gasoline engine and its 55-horsepower electric motor; a combined total of 203 horsepower.

In a couple of instances, the car jerked a little when switching from electric motor to gasoline engine power or vice versa. But for the most part, the only indication that anything was happening was the light buzz the 1.4-liter engine emits at higher r.p.m.

Along with boost mode, the A3 E-Tron has other driving modes, including electric, glide — when the brakes are recovering energy for the battery pack – and hybrid hold, a selectable mode designed to preserve battery charge for later use. In all-electric mode, the E-Tron will reach a top speed of 81 miles per hour. Audi says the car’s 8.8-kilowatt-hour battery pack provides 31 miles of pure electric range and the gasoline engine more than 550 miles of additional range. The automaker claims a zero to 62-mile-per-hour time of 7.6 seconds, which is believable, and fuel economy numbers topping 150 miles per gallon. That figure bears further real world exploration.

Being that this small hybrid wagon was an Audi, it didn’t surprise me that it handled well as I wove in and out of traffic. Its looks didn’t surprise me either. Audi tends to build pretty cars, and the A3 E-Tron is no exception.