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Audi Q5

Tuesday, May 27, 2025 12:00 PM

Mid-sized SUV packs a rare powertrain: diesel hybrid. Does it stack up? It can seem like cars are getting homogenised, with a new skateboard-platform EV being launched every other week. But a few intrepid engineers are still toying with concepts that their colleagues have long since abandoned. Mazda has brought back the rotary engine, Suzuki has revived the automated manual gearbox and Audi is betting on the diesel hybrid with cars like the Audi Q5.Following the related Audi A5 saloon and estate replacing the old A4, the Q5 enters a third generation. Going up against the BMW X3, Mercedes GLC and Range Rover Velar, it’s an incredibly important car for Audi, because while EV quotas make the Q6 E-tron the one that Audi needs to push, the combustion-engined mid-size premium SUV is still the car that customers want.To make the piston-powered Q5 a bit more palatable to the regulators, every version is a hybrid with the capacity to drive with a dormant engine. Plug-in hybrids will follow later this year, but the Q5 arrives with a four-cylinder petrol, a four-pot diesel and, in the Audi SQ5, a V6 petrol. Here, we’re testing the diesel.

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