Audi takes major Australian awards

The winners for the 2016 Carsales Car of the Year awards have been announced, with three Audi vehicles honoured. The ground-breaking Audi A3 Sportback e-tron, A4 Sedan and the new Audi Q7 have each taken out their individual categories, winning the ‘Best City Car’, ‘Best Prestige Car Under $100K’ and ‘Best SUV Over $50K’ respectively.

The Carsales Car of the Year awards are one of the country’s most prestigious and respected vehicle awards, not only conducting exhaustive testing of all new vehicles released onto the Australian market each year, but also rating new vehicles on a strict set of guidelines and practical ownership considerations including ownership costs, ‘value, consumer engagement and affordability assessments’. 

Key safety technology was also factored into the judging criteria for the 2016 awards, additional points were awarded for technology such as standard reversing camera and autonomous emergency braking.

Across all of these fields and in the view of the highly experienced judging panel, the Audi models demonstrated their superiority over the other contenders in each of their classes to claim top honours. 

“Awards like these Carsales category victories show that the introductions we have already seen, especially the all-new A4 and the all-new Q7, really do set a new benchmark for their respective premium segments, against quality opposition,” said Andrew Doyle, Managing Director of Audi Australia, of the announcement.

“These exciting new Audi models herald some of our newest and most exciting design, infotainment, connectivity and driver safety technology, as well as offering impressive performance and sporty driving dynamics. We are delighted that the Carsales judging panel also agrees with our satisfied owners around Australia.”

The depth of the Audi product range was clearly represented by this year’s winning vehicles, with the innovative A3 Sportback e-tron with its plug-in hybrid drivetrain beating out all comers to claim the ‘Best City Car’ category. The all-new Audi A4 Sedan, released at the start of this year claimed ‘Best Prestige Car Under $100K’ with Carsales impressed by its innovation and significant developments across the board saying: “it’s lighter, greener and safer than ever – and a multitude of small things done extremely well, Audi's new A4 takes a convincing win.

The Audi Q7 was likewise singled out as the best in its category – ‘Best SUV Over $50K’ – with Carsales contributor, Bruce Newton saying:

“It is a better vehicle than the equivalent BMW X5 or Mercedes-Benz GLE, both of which feel a generation behind the Audi.”

Certainly each of these vehicles has already received significant popular and critical acclaim around the world and their success in the very competitive as Australian market and in these awards is high praise indeed.

In 2017, Audi Australia will continue to build on this highly successful product offering with even more new models.

“We are in one of the most exciting phases of new product launches in the brand’s history,” says Managing Director of Audi Australia, Andrew Doyle.

If you would like more information on the these award-winning Audi vehicles, visit audi.com.au