The Audi Q8 is luxurious, extravagant and stylish, and makes an admirable executive express for owners who aren’t too worried about its rather obvious packaging compromises. It takes up about as much room on the road as a Q7 SUV, but has only five seats and a much less useful boot. In spite of its more dynamic and contemporary styling, it doesn’t offer significantly more involvement or engagement for the driver either, and is less sharp on the road than the BMW X6, a key rival.
But the Q8 offers good road manners and superb refinement, as well as a plush ride – if you avoid Dynamic mode – and fabulous interior ambience with its twin-touchscreen interior and lavish appointments. As such, it’s a thoroughly appealing choice for drivers who place style and comfort above sports car-like driving responses.
The exterior of the Q8 is quite a step on from the relatively restrained Q7. Features like the larger front grille, more aggressively styled bumpers, new LED headlamp designs and a full-width lighting strip across the boot lid – as well as frameless side windows – give the Q8 a more upmarket and opulent feel.
Inside things step up a gear again from the Q7, with a truly impressive feel that’s inspired largely by the latest A8 limo. There’s lots of piano black trim and brushed metal finishes on display, and the whole fascia is configured around the MMI Touch dual-screen infotainment set-up we know from elsewhere in the Audi range.
As with other models, the top 10.1-inch screen delivers the infotainment, while lower 8.6-inch screen takes care of more fundamental systems like the climate control and car set-up options. It also features handwriting recognition, but this may be a step too far for many right-handed drivers – it makes a lot more sense when the steering wheel is on the left as per other European markets.
The Q8 also features Audi’s Virtual Cockpit as standard, which replaces the traditional instrument pack with a wide full-colour display that can be configured with high-resolution navigation maps or instrument graphics.
It’s not a sporty environment, but rather it’s luxurious, contemporary and very upmarket. That said, when we prodded some of the plastics there was a bit of creak and flex which was a little unexpected. All the electronics and technology systems are made possible because the Q8 is built on the VW Group’s shared MLB Evo platform.
Sat-nav, stereo and infotainment
As you would expect, the Q8’s infotainment system is impressively configured. There’s full smartphone connectivity with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a highly specified audio system, and of course voice control, DAB audio and internet connectivity are all part of the available tech.
The Audi Q8 feels quite a lot like its Q7 stablemate on the road, which is unsurprising given the fact the two share a platform and drivetrains. That’s great if you’re looking for a deft and reasonably sharp handling big SUV, but not so if you’re looking for something that’s more rewarding to drive. The BMW X6, Porsche Cayenne and Range Rover Sport are all more obviously sporty, but given the philosophical conundrum big ‘sporty’ SUVs present, it’s no surprise some owners are more impressed by comfort.
All Q8s sold in the UK come on advanced adaptive air suspension, and on its softest setting the car is softly compliant while resisting roll admirably in corners. The Dynamic setting is less rewarding, as although the Q8 will tackle corners with little body roll and prodigious levels of grip, the ride quality becomes distinctly rough around the edges. Unless you’re on perfectly smooth tarmac, it’s hard to see the advantages and the compromises are considerable.
Steering feel is like every other Audi, which means it offers no sense whatever of the road through the steering wheel rim, but is accurate and responsive to inputs anyway. The 8-speed automatic is not a dual clutch device but a torque converter gearbox, and can be a little hesitant off the line.
The Q8 is supremely quiet at speed, with barely any wind noise and very well muted engine and road noise.
Engines, 0-60 acceleration and top speed
The Audi Q8 arrived first in the UK with only 3.0-litre V6 ‘mild-hybrid’ diesel engine in the 50 TDI. It’s an impressively smooth and refined set-up, and with 282bhp offers rapid acceleration too. 0-62mph arrives in 6.3 seconds, and top speed is 152mph.
The petrol option is a 335bhp 3.0 V6 55 TFSI which will do 0-62mph in 5.9 seconds, and has a top speed of 155mph. More additions to the engine line-up are expected in due course, including an etron plug-in hybrid.
As you’d expect of an Audi flagship, there’s absolutely loads of safety kit wrapped up in that big SUV body. Audi bundles its safety kit into four packages, with the top spec Tour Assist package offering adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping, collision avoidance from the front and sides, and the ability to match speed limits via road sign recognition, and also slows autonomously for corners and roundabouts.
There are five systems at play in the city, monitoring cross-traffic front and rear, vehicles approaching from the side, plus exit and lane change warnings. A Park Plus Assist package prevents bumps during low-speed manoeuvres, and will also park the car autonomously.
Euro NCAP testing has yet to be carried out on the Q8, but we’d expect it to perform similarly to the Q7 with which it shares a platform – and which is itself a five-star-rated car.
What’s less clear is how the model will fare in reliability terms. In our 2018 Driver Power Customer Satisfaction survey, the Audi brand only managed 18th place out of 26 in the survey. Almost 20 per cent of owners across the Audi line-up reported at least one fault with their car in the first year of ownership, too.
Warranty
The Audi Q8 gets the same warranty as everything else in the line-up, which means you’re covered for three-years but only 60,000 miles. BMW’s standard warranty is also three years, but you’re covered for unlimited mileage.
Servicing
You can opt for annual services for your Q8 if you’re the kind of driver who does relatively low mileage with lots of short journeys. The alternative is a variable schedule determined by the car’s onboard sensors. This could see service stops extended as far as two years, but not further.
The Q8 only comes in the one body style, and only as a five-seater. That rakish rear hatch rules out the possibility of an extra third row of seats, even for kids.
You have to climb up into the Q8 which can be a bit of a stretch, and although you ride marginally lower than in the Q7, the view out of the front is pretty much as good. Rear visibility is a little less impressive, but there are lots of parking assistance sensors and systems available to help with that.
A vast range of driver sizes can be accommodated thanks to lots of adjustment in the seats and steering column, and there’s loads of storage around the cabin thanks to a big centre console bin, large glovebox and door bins.
Size
The Q8 measures up at 4,986mm long, 1,705mm tall and 1,995mm wide, so it takes up a chunk of space on the road. The Q7 is a little bit longer at 5,052mm, narrower at 1,968mm and taller at 1,740mm, but there’s not really much in it as you can see. The BMW X6 is 4,909mm long, 1,989mm wide and 1,702 tall.
Leg room, head room & passenger space
Fortunately, the swoopy roofline doesn’t impinge much on passenger space, as it only dives significantly downwards aft of the rear seats. That means there’s a decent amount of headroom, and the broad width of the car means there’s lots of elbow and shoulder room too. The Q8’s long wheelbase ensures that rear seat passengers aren’t hard done by for legroom either, even if there are tall passengers up front with the seats pushed right back.
Boot
There’s a big boot lurking beneath the Q8’s tailgate, and at 605 litres its volume is a little larger than the boot in the rival BMW X6. It can’t match the luggage capacity of its seven-seater stablemate the Audi Q7 though – it’s way ahead with 770 litres of space.
The Q8’s aggressively sloping tailgate does have quite an impact on the practicality, too, as it means you may struggle to fit large boxy items such as washing machines or furniture. Even bicycles might be a problem, and it’s a long way up to the roof if you need to put them on a rack.
There are two engine options currently available in the Q8 line-up, giving buyers the choice of petrol or diesel power – the latter with mild hybrid electric assistance. As you’d expect the 50 TDI diesel is markedly more efficient, offering 42mpg on the combined economy cycle with CO2 emissions of 178g/km.
The petrol powered 55 TFSI is quicker but it’s also a fair bit thirstier, coming in at 31mpg. It’s also more polluting with a 207g/km of CO2. As prices start from around £65,000, all versions of the Q8 cost £450 a year for the first five years of road tax. You won’t get off lightly on Benefit-in-Kind if you’re a company perk driver either – the Q8 is in the highest percentage tax bracket whether you choose petrol or diesel power.
The 48-volt electrics in the Q8 make the mild hybrid tech possible in the diesel version. There’s a lithium-ion battery under the boot floor, which is regenerated under braking. When coasting between 34mph and 99mph the diesel engine’s stop-start tech cuts fuel and progress is maintained using the belt drive starter motor.
Insurance groups
The high price and strong performance of the Audi Q8 ensure high insurance premiums too. The 3.0 V6 diesel versions are rated at Group 45, while the more rapid petrol TFSI comes in at Group 47. These groups are a little higher than equivalent versions of the Audi Q7.
Depreciation
You can spend around £85,000 on a top-spec Audi Q8 before you’ve had a look at the options list, so even though depreciation as a percentage of purchase cost is reasonably competitive at 53 per cent for the S line model (Vorsprung versions are around 46 per cent, reflecting a list price nearly £20k higher), it’s still going to cost you a chunk of change when it comes to move the vehicle on. It seems likely the added economy of diesel versions ought to make a difference on the used market.
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