2025 Audi Q5 and SQ5 First Drive: With All Due Respect

Motor Trend

11-06-2025

A compact luxury SUV has to do it all—being both easy to park yet roomy inside, luxurious but not too expensive, sporty but comfortable—and the 2025 Audi Q5 does. After a few hundred miles of driving the new Q5 and SQ5 on beautiful Colorado back roads, we're left struggling to think of ways it comes up short, even if we're not exactly yearning for more time behind the wheel. Introducing the 2025 Audi Q5
The Q5 has been Audi's bestselling vehicle since 2009, which tracks given its attributes: stylish, upscale, right-sized, well equipped, and competitively priced in an SUV segment that earns the appeal of hundreds of thousands of buyers globally each year.
This is the third-generation Q5, known by fans of the four-ring brand as the B10. Although it's built on a new architecture called Premium Platform Combustion (PPC, in contrast to the PPE basis of the Q6 E-Tron and other Audi EVs), the 2025 Q5 doesn't remix Audi's winning formula.
Throughout, there's more evolution than revolution. Measurements barely change from the outgoing Q5 as aesthetics are modernized—note the slim headlights, trendy taillight bar, textured grille, and deeper sculpting on the hood and doors. It looks chic and clearly recognizable as a Q5, if seeming slightly bulbous compared to its sharply creased predecessor and evocative of the Q6 E-Tron, its de facto EV twin. The sloped-roof Q5 Sportback variant returns to provide sleek street presence.
Despite the nearly carryover exterior dimensions, the five-seat 2025 Q5 gains some cargo capacity, plus added space in the door bins and center console. The cabin design uses more shape, texture, and color variation to mostly escape the starkness of the previous generation.
In the so-called 'Digital Stage,' an 11.9-inch gauge display and 14.5-inch infotainment touchscreen are combined within an enclosure curved slightly toward the driver. In the high-end Prestige trim, a 10.9-inch touchscreen for the front passenger replaces a big piece of black plastic on the lesser Premium and Premium Plus versions.
Engine hardware is similar to before, although the turbocharged four-cylinder gains variable vane turbocharging and other changes aimed at improving drivability. Fuel economy is no better or worse; another plug-in hybrid powertrain is rumored to be in the works.
The Q5's 2.0-liter turbo I-4 now produces 268 hp, an increase of 7 hp, good for a 5.8-second 0–60-mph run, according to Audi. Meanwhile, the SQ5's 3.0-liter turbocharged V-6 makes 368 hp, a good gain from the 349 hp it made last year, cutting the quoted 0–60 time to 4.6 seconds. Both engines are linked to a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission and Audi's signature Quattro AWD system.
Air suspension—an uncommon offering among compact SUVs—is equipped on the high-end Q5 Prestige and every SQ5. Its height adjusts based on drive mode, lowering in Dynamic and raising in Off Road.
By how the Q5 drives, it pulls off a rare feat: endearing without emotion. While some rivals chase cosseting comfort or driver engagement, the Q5 instead makes an impression through pragmatism. Like with the Q6 E-Tron, Audi's signature tuning style results in an anodyne yet competent package.
Dynamically, the Q5 does enough. There's sufficient power from its turbocharged engine, distributed adeptly through Quattro as demonstrated across the long section of damp dirt road on our drive route. Like a classic turbo mill, a wave of torque arrives in the midrange where it's needed most, before subsiding as the tachometer climbs.
Aside from minor turbo lag, the Q5 can feel just slightly delayed leaving from a stop, a vagary of dual-clutch transmissions as their clutches mesh to send torque to the wheels. Once underway, shifts are quick, crisp, and nearly imperceptible.
Beyond the steering ratio itself, the steering wheel's large diameter contributes to the Q5's relaxed and uncomplicated road manners. On the air suspension-equipped Prestige model, ride quality feels more firm than plush when encountering bigger pavement imperfections but remains smooth and steady on textured surfaces and through gradual curves.
The brake pedal is surprisingly reactive at the top—almost grabby but not quite—before quickly building into firm stopping power deeper down. The SQ5 Could Use More S
Performance increases tangibly in the SQ5, but this sporty model can be as cool and calm as its counterpart—we just wish it weren't so reserved when it doesn't need to be.
Thanks to standard air suspension, the SQ5 feels stable and composed like the Q5; Audi didn't excessively stiffen the chassis to impart an artificial sensation of sportiness. With this poise, the SQ5 deflects impacts and uses its good mechanical grip to stay planted when bombing down a twisty road.
Compared to the Q5, the SQ5's default steering feels slightly heavier, and its brakes bite stronger. Still, this tuning is well within the range of viability for comfortable everyday use.
How the engine makes power, and how that power is put to the ground, could leave an enthusiast driver wanting more. Getting off the line isn't the issue—when using launch control, the SQ5 dumps its clutch to deliver a strong kick of acceleration as Quattro makes terrific traction. Rather, it's once underway where the V-6 suffers a soft feel, both from slight turbo lag and a lack of top end oomph, which is compounded by the transmission's hesitancy to downshift into the powerband. The SQ5 often feels about two seconds behind the commands of its driver, making involvement and engagement distant. Screens of Mixed Success
Perhaps we've been conditioned to cringe when functions once controlled by real buttons become integrated into touchscreens, but Audi's execution of this in the Q5 proves some automakers do it better than others. That is to say, how the digital climate controls work in the Q5 is basically a nonissue; they're responsive, clear, and always within reach at the bottom of the touchscreen.
Even though the infotainment menu structure is intuitive, Audi's digital voice assistant can recognize commands related to more than 800 functions in the Q5, serving as an effective workaround when two hands must remain on the wheel.
The standard digital driver's display is welcome but offers little reconfigurability of information, even less than in the previous Q5 since it can't show a full-screen navigation map. Additionally, we spent as much time behind the wheel as we did riding shotgun, and we're not convinced the passenger touchscreen is anything more than a gimmick, even if it does provide the same great functionality as the primary touchscreen directly next to it.
Check out our full interior review of the new 2025 Audi Q5 and SQ5 here. Style, Meet Substance
Overall, the Q5 is impressively proficient, such that it's tricky to think of facets still in major need of work or refinement. It does the job well, but it's not perfect. We still wish for more verve, especially in SQ5 guise, so that how it drives could be a reason to want it more.
Even if there's not much spirit, the Q5 still earns our respect for its sensible execution. It's a complete package that should excel as a daily driver; a premium one-car solution ready to meet life's needs with panache and practicality.