Audi RS5 Review: Hybrid Power, But Is It Enough?

[00:30] But I'm James, and this is the new Audi RS5.

[00:48] New, meaning the RS5 has joined the party and indulged in the high horsepower but high calorie fruit punch of hybridity. Unlike Mercedes though, with its now disgusting four-cylinder C63, the RS5 does right by enthusiasts,

[01:05] by maintaining all six of its cylinders. That doesn't mean that Audi isn't under threat, however, because ever since BMW M cars have added xDrive, Audi's Quattro selling point has diminished somewhat, but their prices

[01:20] certainly haven't. So, what to do with your Audi? you clap back like a jealous petulant child just copied BMW's homework with a drift mode and a drift analyser.

[01:38] Woo! It worked! That big front man is just waving his head around. Chris, it weighs more than the big boy RS6, but it outpowers the big boy RS6.

[01:55] No, it does actually feel quite good, other than the pogoing when the tires are really grippy and you haven't overheated them yet. Alright, but this feels like, yeah, I can feel it. It's so flat for how much it weighs. Well, that's not a really good job, though.

[02:07] Like, it's managing its mass. You can tell that stuff's happening, but it's doing it really well. And a big part of that is one of the actual cool innovations with this RS5, the new dual valve suspension setup with independent compression and rebound control.

[02:22] That is meticulously calibrated with the now electro-mechanical torque vectoring, not clutch patch this time, which very cleverly disseminates power between the wheels. It's all a lot of very sophisticated tech, but in short, the new suspension paired with

[02:38] the hybrid system makes fat boy Audi move like skinny boy BMW on track. Oh, that was a four-wheel skid right there. Yeah. You straightened the wheel.

[02:50] You straightened the wheel. You never could do that. No, that was nuts. It can do it. So what I'm curious to know is, does the weight and the trip suspension and the rear disc, how does that translate to this, hopefully, now being the king of the road super wagons?

[03:08] Because, as cool as it is that an RS5 can trick itself into M car behaviour on track, Audi RS cars have always edged out the M stuff when it comes to road mandals. What if Audi is so blinded by chasing BMW that they've forgotten that?

[03:25] Wales, what you got? I got beat. What? Right away. OK, they made a steering wheel that's not a steering wheel, it's a steering circle,

[03:37] square, Sorry. It's fine. It's fine if I was able to see all of the dashboard when I'm in a good drive. I'm currently in a good drive position. In my brain, I have a memory of a good drive position and this is it.

[03:50] And I can't see the top of the tach. Anyway, so we still have a 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6. And through special changes, Audi have managed to make that produce over 500 horsepower now,

[04:03] where once it was like 444. Right. That alone means that it is a more powerful RS5 and some people probably would have said stop there, that's good. You don't need the extra weight of the batteries in the EV.

[04:16] But they did add that and so you have 40 miles of electric range and a total output of 630 horsepower. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's more than the R8. The Triton.

[04:28] The Triton, yes. It does give you, with the weight, a more than 60 time of 3.6 seconds which is I think the same as it was and is still slower than the M3 Torrent.

[04:40] So, in competition, the X-Rifle. Hmm. Why? Howdy. Just beat them. Beat them. You beat them. That's the rule. You're supposed to. If you're second or third to making the new generation,

[04:53] you have to beat the guys that already did it. Right? And then the last guy to make theirs for the generation is the fastest. You could all do the real world Geraldson. I would like the engine to turn on. How do I do that?

[05:05] Alright, I gotta give the engine credit. There was some fun with that for a second because I was trying to figure out what was going on. I thought I was in an EV only mode or something but I not The engine is on you can just barely hear it and it feels like an EV on the model In a good way In a good way Like the reliability is really nice

[05:22] From the power perspective, you have to imagine there's probably more in it. Because people have tuned the previous NR5 to insane numbers. Yes, of course. And the C63, which more shoulders make more power.

[05:34] So, with the replacement of the turbochargers, I like, ultimately could get thousands of horsepower in there. It quite works like that. At least if Audi, if they do an RS5 performance,

[05:49] which is when they do add horsepower. Wait, do they? Or do they sometimes just make the suspension worse? Or the wheel bigger? Sorry, that's the competition. Yeah, yeah. If BMW had competition, they had power. Audi is the one that's the horse.

[06:02] Right, okay. Dynamic now. All right, so I'll steer it some way. All right. All right. It's not that quick.

[06:19] An M car is faster than that. Like, an M car is more frantic than that in the way it accelerates. Yes. Right? This is very dramatic. Very undramatic. Now we're in RS Sport mode. RS Sport.

[06:31] I don't understand. There's so many different options. There's individual, RS Sport, RS Torque, or Balanced Dynamic Comfort. Yes. And then I've got a button here for boost, a button here for RS. Yes. The RS button totals you three beats.

[06:43] The RS individual is what you set. RS4 is the most aggressive. Total career is... It doesn't draw you through all of them. Why not? Explain yourself. I don't know. It doesn't. What are you doing? Click, click, click, skip, skip, skip, skip. You don't want those.

[06:56] Okay. Oh, goody. There's a drive select button down here. Now, that goes through these three. This one goes through these three. Because, you know what it is?

[07:08] Justify it. I dare you. I'm going to justify it. I'm going to come up with it. This is why. Okay. Because the RS button takes you out of comfort and into the two RS modes that are not track-only modes, which is RS individual and sport. I wish you could have heard that sentence.

[07:22] And then... And the other side. And the select mode is that you do the non-RS mode. Uh-huh. Okay. I think it makes sense. So what's this button do? That's boost. Boost. If you want to do an overtake, I think it gives you 10 seconds of everything.

[07:37] Which is, I find silly because there is a button down there. Isn't there a big one underneath my right foot? Yeah. Usually there is. Yeah. Yeah.

[07:49] It's confusing. Alright, finally on a back road. Woo! back road.

[08:13] I picked the bumpy one because I have a feeling that this is going to handle it very very well. Oh yeah? This is a very very very bumpy road. Very bumpy. Annoyingly bumpy. Yeah. dial and we are in a more crazy...

[08:26] Yeah, but this is kind of flattening it out, isn't it? It's doing a very good job. Really, really good job. But not just for like a heavy RS5, for an RS5. Period. Yeah, yeah, the weight is not an issue right here.

[08:40] I still don't like that I can't see the top of my cap, or my steering wheel's in a good position. But that's starting to become pointy elbows in the citizens' house, because it's doing a lot of things very well. Yeah, like, look at this corner here.

[08:56] Like, consider for a moment, is this almost M5 touring race? And the way that lock is composing the corners. Yeah, you know what? Great comparison. The M5 touring is not as sorted as the chassis department has been. As this Audi.

[09:08] As this Audi. It's crazy to say. And? But the damn thing is better in this. Exactly. I just say, this is a ZF gearbox. Audi's gearboxes have never been that terrible. But, BMW have slightly less of them. And I think this is coming our way too.

[09:24] It's fun, but it's still not that fun. No, it's not. It's not fun. You know what I mean? There's a kind of fun in an Audi. You're allowed to have fun in an Audi. Competence toys. Yes, those are the words. Also, we did a nice long commute to this typical mind-bending 20 mile an hour town in Wales.

[09:41] Where normally I would want to step out of the car and set myself on fire because it's so infuriating to drive that slowly. And this thing kept me from doing that because it was smooth and insulated and I was just kind of like... Yeah.

[09:53] You're also, by the way, in the harshest suspension setting right now. Yeah, and it's just doing a really, really fine job, honestly. It was only a few years ago that you rocked an RS5 through England for my wedding.

[10:05] That's right. How do you feel as compared? Similar road? It's not so, so similar. Because that Audi, like most Audis, and it could be the greatest Audi, this Audi, kind of just blend into like competence in your memory, right? So this is doing exactly

[10:21] what an Audi I guess should, but at the same time it deserves a little bit more time and performance So I mean new generation mission accomplished A lot of the compliments for the car are they managed to negate the difficulties of the extra added weight and emissions Don Don Don

[10:41] I have to assume that they have to. Yes, we have to assume that they have to otherwise why would they? Alright, so the only thing left for Audi to mess up is the siren. And they didn't.

[10:58] They didn't. They nailed it. Oh, well, nailed it's a bit... Actually, no, they did nail it. They nailed it really hard with a steel-toed boot right in the middle of the grill. Yeah, they boosted that bit.

[11:10] I think boosting means when you take, like, alcohol and you, like, put it in your butt so that you get drunk faster. Didn't know that. But... I'm pretty sure that's what that means. I'm going to tell you. Is that what that means?

[11:22] That's an odd... He nodded. Yeah. Well, I'm going to stick with it. That looks boosh to me. I don't know why... If Tesla can keep the technology right behind the body panels that you never see, why has Audi had to change their entire...

[11:35] You know that one, then? That's the one you're not supposed to notice, because of that one. I don't see what's happening. Yeah, why can't they hide it? I don't know. Otherwise, it's a really nice-looking front end. It's well-proportioned.

[11:47] Yes. Actually, the whole car is well-proportioned. They've done a beautiful job. There's an RS badge on the grille. the emblem is still a bit plasticky and grey I'm not sure about that move because the silver metal-y thing was nice yeah but

[11:59] do they have the headlights do they have the different yes styles yes eight different styles for the headlights I like the one that has the little snake eyes that's my favourite interesting I like the one that looks like an eye thing

[12:11] that's what I just said they're sort of like the same no they're like a human a cooler a cooler one than your one I don't mind the thing with the monster eyes anyway It's a bit of a gimmick, but it's fun. Yeah, why not? And here it is in a proud, plateau grey paint.

[12:26] Why is that in the grey? Do you think there's a room of people dedicated to coming up with new names for just grey? Ooh, this is plate grey. I'm sure. Ooh, this is rock grey. No, I know this. Ooh, this is chuck grey.

[12:38] Yeah. Ooh, this is ash grey. It's just... I feel like you haven't known a few Audi names. Exactly. I promise. That's where I make fun of the green team. Stupid. We've got the vents on the side.

[12:50] Yeah. I think we first saw on the Econ GT that's worked its way down to the RS3 and then back up now to the RS5. Yeah. And it's even on the A6 Allroad now, which is an oddly sharp-looking car for the off-road

[13:02] AU version. We don't get the wagon in North America. There's rumors that we might, but we currently know we just get the sedan, which is still sharp-looking, but... The wagon is what makes it cool.

[13:14] It is really big, though, by the way. Can I say this? It's about as big as an RS6. No, no, it's heavier. I mean, it's four inches shorter than the RS. Oh, wow, okay. Okay, and it's tens of thousands cheaper.

[13:26] Don't worry that we don't get the wagon, because the wagon is not actually that effective because of all the hybrid stuff. It's quite a high seal. However, there is an S5 wagon here, so maybe that's better.

[13:39] Yeah. Why do the exhaust tips look like the front of the Morgan that we drove? Because the batteries had to come in a bit. Right. It hasn't got the aggressive wide stance that it used to have.

[13:52] Listen, I really like the way this car looks. That part looks terrible. It looks worse in photos. Even though you're standing here, I don't want to invalidate your opinion. Okay.

[14:04] So I think the world agrees that they nailed the outside. Yeah. At least it has normal door handles, right? Well, and it has brakes. Yeah, it doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't. It does have the brake calipers that have been stolen from Optimus Prime's shoulder pads.

[14:17] So actually, they look like the same brakes that are on the Urus. Yeah. The massive caliber. I think they are. I think they are. Well, you need to be able to stop all this weight, so that makes sense, right? Can we look at the interior? Because that's where, like, a lot of stuff has been changed.

[14:31] That's the last place for Ali to mess this up a little bit. Yeah. The last one. Okay. Mixed. Well, mixed. Tell me why you think it's mixed.

[14:43] Then I'll tell you why I think it's mixed. So I've had time to get used to the new interior. Yeah. So the stuff that irked me at the beginning is mostly gone. Okay. I still don't understand why Audi insists on swathes of piano black.

[14:55] Yes. That is dirty. It's already dirty. We've had this car for not even a week. Yep. And we cleaned it yesterday. Yeah. The screen, that's a totally unnecessary screen. You never use it.

[15:07] Yeah. It's completely pointless. Yeah. And that's just more reason for piano black. and for some reason, the way the screen's integrated, even though I don't mind the shapes of everything, there's just so much bezel. There's a lot of bezels.

[15:19] Also, like, this isn't... What's happening there? Why? Why? Why is it like that? I couldn't tell you. Here's what I think. I think, and this is a problem with this car, but also just a problem with a lot of, like, high-tech German cars,

[15:33] it's too fussy and there's too much, right? I have a genuinely hard time. I've spent a lot of time with this car now. I'm having a genuinely hard time not being distracted by all of the crap that's on the screens. There stuff popping up all over the place I don know when it in the hybrid mode versus the balances but 52 different icons on this screen Right I just I genuinely I saying I have a

[15:55] hard time with how complex this is. And you couple that with all of the overbearing safety systems that will slam on the brakes when you're trying to back up the car in a parking lot for no reason. So that's just modern car stuff. That's what I'm saying. That's the

[16:09] thing. We've made a video. Exactly. But I'm just reiterating once more that this car is guilty of all of the crimes, right? Yes. Okay, my question then is, where does the RS5 modernize successfully

[16:24] versus the previous generation? It drives fantastically. It rides really well with the dampers. Yes. I would say that this is a top-level example of how good the Germans are these days at masking the weight of big vehicles.

[16:37] But again, masking is not the same as progressing or innovating. No, not quite there yet. So in what ways is this RS5 better than the previous gen RS5?

[16:49] I think that the integration of the EV side of this is very, very well done. Driving it around in EV mode, you still get tons of torque. It's absolutely silent. The transition to the engine is perfectly seamless.

[17:01] Everything is calibrated very well. The ride is great. It's super silent on the inside. It's just everything that Audi is turned up a little bit. Right. And shifts are smoother. Yeah. That's a lot of good stuff. It is a lot of good stuff. And the styling's got better.

[17:13] the styling has got better yeah for the most part I think this is the best looking car in the previous RS5 sure it's less of a sleeper yeah but I think no it's a very very very good looking wagon

[17:25] for sure I don't know I just I have mixed feelings on these things because yes what they've achieved here is very impressive in terms of the way that it controls its mass and how they've integrated so much technology into quite a seamless operating package

[17:37] but at the same time I'm overwhelmed by how in the screen but you can just drop it to car play and you can just drive it. No, I know, but I just don't need any of this stuff. Like, we just drove a car

[17:49] this week. I don't know if you remember it, but it had a supercharged engine, a manual transmission, and four switches. Yes, sir. And I just got in it and I drove away. But it was a workout to drive it. Okay, sure.

[18:01] Then we drove another car this week that was small and pink and lots of fun. It also had three knobs. I turned a key, got in it, and drove away. So you asked for a navigator to sit next to you to show you how to get to it. That's a good point. This is a

[18:13] This is a very good dual-purpose car. It can drift on the track. It feels good in the corners. It feels good in the straights. Great acceleration. And then when you want it to be, it becomes an executive vehicle in a way that I agree,

[18:26] but I also think right now we're hitting some sort of a plateau on how much. Is it plateau gray? That's the plateau gray. I did that on purpose. I think we're hitting this point where we're going to start to simplify a little bit. We've hit the peak of what people can tolerate.

[18:40] Clean it up a bit. Just clean it up. Well, different brands are doing it. Some of them are trying to reduce the visual noise. It's not the visual noise that's the problem. It's how complex everything is and how fussy it is and how many menus there are, how many screens there are and how difficult it is to organize and operate and manipulate and turn on and turn off.

[18:55] I just want a simpler experience. The things that I like about this car are pleasant. It's quiet, smooth, fast, comfortable, efficient. Drives really well. Has a good ride. I can take a phone call, which I did. Right? Strange counterpoint.

[19:07] Yeah. What if, in order to tackle the doom-scrolling epidemic, because when we're on the motorway here and on the highway, we see people on their phone all the time. Yeah. What if Audi have made this just complicated and engaging enough

[19:20] that you can't do them scrolls? And that's actually the optimal, safest version of current human nature. What do you mean? That's a very sad reality you're living in. We live in a sad reality.

[19:32] Why would I ever scream? I could be doom-scrolling right now. Ah, Audi. So much goodness. And yet, it's not all perfect, is it? Here's the thing.

[19:44] In our minds, the new RS5 never had to be as dynamic as an M3. That's the MW's fault. Let them have it. But this entire car is a double-edged sword. The EV range and well-calibrated hybrid setup

[19:57] means that even though, yes, it has the same brakes as a Lamborghini Urus, it's 400 pounds heavier than one of those. Which also means that the drift mode, while fun, is an absolute tyre killer, as some others have found.

[20:09] That's the real time one. And for all that extra power, it's no quicker in real life. The wagon shape for the markets that have it is lovely to look at, but the actual utility is questionable.

[20:21] The interior tech is abundant, but now looks like the user interface of an MMORPG, and the gauge cluster is a massive step up from the previous gen. The new Audi RS5 gets some of the important stuff right, but it is not a slam dunk,

[20:38] which is probably what Audi could have done with on the eve of an entirely new M3. But hey, it is pretty. Thanks for watching.