First drive of the new Audi Q5

The national capital has many things going for it, probably, but in winter none of those things are its weather. If anything, autumn’s unpredictability is even worse. Canberra will be balmy one moment and then frozen the next. 

Today is one of those days. It is so cold that the all-new Q5’s seat heaters are set to Mach 10. Winding down the car window while driving – to see whether you’re simply insulated from wind noise at highway speed, or whether the Q5 simply has none — is like being sledgehammered in the face by all of Lake Burley Griffin at once. Canberra has turned hatefully cold and it’s still only April.

Nippy, then. But the Q5? If you’re a fan of the original — the legendary model that defined midsize SUV luxury with its 2009 debut — then this second generation will fire your imagination and warm your heart.

Updating a car that has shifted over 1.6 million units globally (including the go-faster SQ5 version), and almost 24,000 cars in Australia, must have been daunting. The all-conquering Q5 was Australia’s largest selling medium-sized luxury SUV from its launch until 2015. Remarkably, it became more popular, racking up higher sales with each passing year, and setting a precedent from which Audi’s spectacular Q-model success could flow. A misstep with the new Q5 wrong would be a disaster – a fact confirmed at our exclusive pre-pre-launch drive by Anna Burgdorf, Audi Australia’s General Manager Corporate Communications. 

“In many ways, the Q5 sits at the sweet spot of the SUV market,” she says. “This is an incredibly important vehicle for us.” 

Safe to say that the all-new Q5 2.0 TDI quattro we’re driving today — toting 140kW and a solid 400Nm — has repaid Audi’s investment. (A second model, the 185kW/370Nm 2.0 TFSI quattro — impressive torque for a petrol engine — wasn’t available for Canberra’s long lead drive. It will arrive in time for the Q5’s official public debut this winter). 

The new edition is up to 90kg lighter, more powerful, faster and more dynamic, with a raft of new future tech. It’s long on engineering highlights, first among them perhaps quattro drive with ultra technology, as well as highly efficient engines and adaptive air suspension. Plus there’s the array of advanced infotainment and driver assistance systems familiar to drivers of the spectacular next-generation A4 or Q7; innovative future technology that the brand has been porting down from the executive class with refreshing haste — including the star of the show, the brilliant, optional Audi Virtual Cockpit, Audi’s lightning fast, customisable instrument cluster.

Immediately apparent is the evolution of the all-new Q5’s exterior design architecture. It’s crisp and refined, and more sharply cut than its predecessor, with subtly larger external dimensions. While the same width, the all-new Q5 is a touch longer (plus 34mm) overall and in its wheelbase (plus 12mm), and 6mm taller; minor expansion which belies a TARDIS-ish provision of improved shoulder, knee and elbow space inside. Visually, the Q5’s front and rear are marked with horizontal lines, the upper-corners of a relatively low Singleframe grille contoured towards the A-pillar. Each headlight is raked towards a keenly defined tornado line that runs above the door handles and below a re-situated wing mirror. Impressively, each individual panel fits precisely, as if vacuum sealed across its contours. Over the wheels, the Q5’s guards that bulge slightly as a decisively masculine nod to Audi’s quattro lineage.

Inside the cabin is typically Audi, with a concentration on materials, design and craftsmanship that has become Ingolstadt’s hallmark. 

The MMI operating system — featuring MMI all-in-touch, the intuitive, touchpad interface that impresses in the Q7 and SQ7 — allows smartphone-style finger gestures, such as scrawling letters to input band names or addresses, or tap-to-zoom, directing the large, 8.3” MMI display on the centre panel. And that’s even without the optional Virtual Cockpit, the 12.3” display that replaces the traditional dials.

Yet any car is only as impressive as it is to drive. Here, the steering is fast and direct, maximising the driver engagement enabled by a new seven-speed S tronic dual clutch transmission. That 400Nm of turbo-diesel torque — available from just 1750rpm —provides a healthy 0-100km/h time of 7.9 seconds (half a second faster than the outgoing model — a time that’s reduced to 6.3 seconds in the 2.0 TFSI, making the petrol model the fastest four-cylinder SUV in the market).

The quattro drive with ultra technology adds efficiency without reducing capability. Its sensors monitor requirements at 100 times a second, switching imperceptibly between all-wheel-drive and front-wheel-drive only in a tenth of a second. Coast up the highway and you slip smoothly into FWD; attack a series of bends or demand enthusiastic acceleration and all four wheels come the to party. It’s innately balanced and impeccably mannered, with an extra serving of stiffness and flatter cornering when dynamic mode is toggled via Drive Select.

Unlike Canberra, the all-new Audi Q5 promises to be a genuinely welcoming place to be, regardless of the weather. Over half a day, we’ve lapped the capital’s many glorious roundabouts, its lovely — if breathtakingly chilly — surrounding countryside, its wide urban boulevards and smaller satellite villages. It’s been difficult to raise a single complaint… provided you stay inside the car.

We head home past Lake Burley Griffin, where a single, hardy rower is battling his way through slate-grey arctic chop. Nobody is swimming. Go under and you’d likely be hauled from the frozen depths a thousand years from now, like a permafrost mammoth.

Progress is relentless. It’s easy to be left behind — but on the evidence of the all-new Q5, Audi is light years ahead.