2027 Audi RS5 first drive: A performance PHEV with split personalities

SAALFELDEN, Austria—Audi may have built a reputation for technology over the years, either pioneering or early-adopting things like all-wheel drive, direct-injection engines, and so on. But it’s also true that along the way it has earned a bit of a reputation for cars that look good inside and out but maybe aren’t the most exciting things on four wheels. Not so for the models reworked by Audi Sport, the company’s motorsports division, which now also spends its time building the company’s new Formula 1 power units. And like those latest F1 cars, its newest RS5 road car also marries together a turbocharged V6 and an electric motor. How convenient. The underlying chassis of the new RS5 is shared with the A5 that we first drove last summer, but the only common body panels between the lesser A5 and this car is the hood; everything else is RS5-specific. Aggressive wheel arch blisters add more than 3.5 inches (90 mm) of width compared to the A5, and massive air intakes dominate the front fascia. At the rear, a pair of large oval exhaust pipes are set into a diffuser. Oh, and you don’t get those kinds of carbon-fiber accents on a regular A5. Perhaps my favorite styling detail? The rear OLED tail lights have a checkered flag pattern (as do the daylight running lights up front). That internal combustion engine shares the same 2.9 L capacity as the previous RS5 but is all-new. It uses a pair of variable geometry turbochargers in a hot-vee configuration (meaning the turbines are on top of the engine between the cylinder banks), with air-to-water intercoolers and air intakes as short as the Audi Sport engineers could make them. Even though it operates under a modified Miller cycle for better efficiency under partial loads, the new engine still manages to generate 502 hp (375 kW) and 442 lb (600 Nm). For the record, that’s 60 hp (45 kW) more than the old V6 while using about 20 percent less fuel. Of course, if you’re worried about fuel consumption, make sure to plug the RS5 in regularly. There’s a usefully sized 22 kWh (net, 25.9 kWh gross) lithium-ion traction battery under the cargo floor that powers (among other things) the 174 hp (130 kW), 639 lb-ft (470 Nm) electric motor that also sends torque to the wheels via the car’s eight-speed ZF automatic transmission. That’s sufficient for about 50 miles (80 km) of emission-free motoring between charges, more than enough for most people’s daily driving needs. Since it’s a PHEV there’s obviously no DC charging ability, but it accepts AC power at up to 11 kW and takes 2.5 hours to recharge the battery. With a curb weight of 5,180 lbs (2,350 kg), this PHEV is no featherweight, but the twin-valve dampers do a good job of controlling the ride and hiding that mass. As you switch into Dynamic, you notice the ride gets notably rougher, and the steering heavier but not any more communicative. And because the electric power is sent to the four wheels via that eight-speed ZF ‘box, sometimes the throttle response isn’t perhaps what you might expect from something electrified, as the transmission needs time to drop down a couple of gears. I was also impressed with the battery capacity. Often on PHEV first drives, the cars’ battery packs are depleted by lunchtime and rarely recharged for the journalists who drive them later in the day. But with a 50-mile pack and a powertrain that tries to regenerate energy to the battery whenever it can, even my afternoon drives made full use of both aspects of the powertrain. It’s not that bad when limited to electric power alone—639 lb-ft is plenty to get the car moving, and it was quiet and smooth on battery power alone. Whether you have the RS5’s electronic brains set to Naughty or Nice, you still get a rather fabulous RS interior to enjoy it all from. I’d personally choose the Alcantara wheel over the dimpled leather as it feels so much nicer under the hand (although Alcantara can get grimy with heavy use), but all the touchpoints feel of the sort of quality you expect for a car of this price.