Audi’s biggest problem of late hasn’t been how its cars drive: recent releases from the Autobahn-storming RS5 hybrid to the Q3 small SUV have impressed on the road. The issue? At some point, the cars from the Four Rings stopped feeling as premium inside as they should have.
That makes the new Audi Q7 an interesting proposition. It’s no wild reinvention of the luxury SUV, and you can’t even get an electric version…yet. From a distance, plenty of people will mistake it for a subtle update of the current car, even though it’s a comprehensive change under the skin.
The next-gen Q7 is set to arrive in Australia in early 2027 but we’ve already driven it in the Austrian Alps. What we found was an important course correction.
All the goodness of the old version was still present, but Audi’s filled the new model with more of the richness and polish that made this brand desirable in the first place.
So, what are we looking at here?
This is the third generation of Audi’s large, three-row family SUV. It arrives at a
slightly awkward yet intriguing moment for the German brand.
The Q7 is no longer expected to be Audi’s biggest crossover. An even bigger Q9 is coming to sit above it, meaning the Q7 has been spared the usual bloat we find in new-gen cars. It’s still about five metres long - hardly tiny - but Audi has resisted the temptation to stretch it into a massive vehicle.
That matters, because the result is a car that remains big enough to cart around two or three kids and their stuff on a regular basis, but it’s not so enormous that it feels out of place on a mountain road…or, presumably, an inner-city Australian car park.
A fully electric Q7 e-tron model is a couple of years away - and the EV will look
radically different. For now, the incoming Q7 keeps its focus on big diesel V6
engines, but a petrol plug-in hybrid is expected for Austraila, too. Plus, a 440kW SQ7 model with a V8 is on its way…
Give us the brag-worthy numbers.
The car I drove in Austria used Audi’s latest 3.0-litre V6 TDI engine making 220kW of power and 630Nm of torque. This is paired to an eight-speed automatic (with paddle shifters), new-gen Quattro AWD, and a more advanced mild hybrid system that can run the car on electric power at low speed.
That mild hybrid tech also adds 18kW/370Nm for brief periods, including when
launching and overtaking. There is an electric compressor that sharpens up the
throttle response and reduces the lag the big diesels used to be known for.
Australians will be able to option the Q7 with seven seats (as we’re used to), but also five seats (for a huge boot) or a new six-seat config with luxe captain’s chairs in row two, which makes the Audi feel more like a chauffeur-driven limo than junior footy transport. Plus, the doors open electrically…
Other highlights include optional 23-inch wheels for the first time on a Q7 - and even the smallest alloys are 20”. Adaptive air suspension, four-wheel steering and a panoramic glass roof with switchable transparency feature on the spec sheet, while audio is taken care of via a 22-speaker Bang & Olufsen 4D system.
What’s the new Q7 like inside?
Far better than some recent efforts from Audi, that’s for sure.
That might sound like faint praise, but it makes sense when you sit in the Q7.
While the SUV uses the same, curving “Digital Stage” dash as other new Audi models with three separate screens, the setup has not been universally loved, mostly because it lacks the calm and elegant feel of Audi’s interiors from days gone by.
But the Q7 has done a superior job of making this interior concept finally feel
expensive. Stitched leather sits across almost all trim and open-pore wood replaces the tacky piano black that should have been banned from luxury cars years ago.
The front seats are fantastic with soft, quilted leather, plus cooling, heating, and
massage functionality—plus nice extras like inflatable side bolsters to hold you in
tight. The cabin also has amazing visibility because the Q7 is big and square.
Still, it’s not perfect in here. I would prefer physical climate controls (rather than on-screen), and Audi itself has already signalled that more tactile and traditional Audi cabin designs are coming from 2028 onward. But as a transitional interior, it’s more convincing than expected.
Is it fun to drive?
Well, it’s more satisfying than fun, but the Q7 impresses on the blacktop. The old car was one of the more athletic large SUVs but it didn’t love the bumps if you specified big wheels.
The new car is quite different: even on 22s or 23s, it rides with more ease, isolates the cabin well, and behaves like an expensive long-distance family ride should.
Of the two air suspension setups, the ‘sport’ system retains something like the old car’s firmer edge with greater agility, but the ‘comfort’ version was the go in our opinion. It had a calm, unbothered quality but was still perfectly capable of hustling on the alpine roads of our first test.
Audi’s Quattro boffins have made some meaningful changes to the centre
differential, which means that more of that V6 torque can be sent to the rear wheels more quickly.
You don’t tend to drift seven-seat SUVs, but the Q7 resists understeer incredibly well, pivoting, gripping and driving out of corners like something smaller and sportier.
Isn’t diesel a bit old-school?
Kind of - and a hybrid is on the way - but the V6 TDI in the new Q7 shows us why
this fuel isn’t dead yet. While a big diesel sounds like a blast from the past, the
engine is so smooth and muscular…and yet it delivers incredible fuel economy.
I managed 6.2L/100km without trying too hard, equating to 1200km of real range.
That said, with weight increasing modestly to about 2350kg, I sometimes wanted more power. The diesel can sound a touch gruff and it isn’t an outright fast car…so I’d probably try to stretch to the hugely powerful SQ7 V8 once it lands.
Would we buy one?
Well, I would, particularly if your life now includes a lot of long-distance family
transport. If you need lots of space, a comfortable ride that won’t wake younger kids and you’re a fan of quiet luxury rather than glitzy motoring, you’ll like the new Q7.
Compared to rivals like the Mercedes-Benz GLE/GLS and BMW X5/X7, not to
mention new premium SUVs from China that tend to be dripping in chrome, the new Audi deliberately flies under the radar with a more understated and subtle design. You’ll either be into that, or not.
Pricing and detailed Australian specs are still a few months away, but we expect the new Q7 to kick off around $120,000 before on-road costs when it lands in early 2027.
