Great write-up. I test drove the new Volt (had a first gen Volt for a 3 year lease - great car) in the Spring and also test drove the A3 E-tron. The second gen volt is great, but it ended up feeling very similar in the drive to my gen 1. As a "car guy" it just wasn't doing it for me (sadly, as it is probably the best all around electric in many respects). I actually did like the way the A3 E-tron rode and drove, but at the end of the day its tech compared relatively poorly to the Volt (not that important), and I just kept coming back to the "16 miles of range" which put it in the "why bother getting electric?" category.
Honestly, if the A3 E-tron had 25 or 30 miles of range, I probably would have been driving one now (or at least waiting for the refreshed 2017 virtual cockpit). Waiting for the new Volt (courtesy of GM's delayed introduction of the 2017 to middle America) opened the door to getting to test drive the E-tron and, of course, waiting to see if the "right" CPO Tesla would come along.