AUDI Q5

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 Q5.

Following the related 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 SQ5, a V6 petrol. Here, we're testing the diesel.

DESIGN & ENGINEERING

★★★★☆

PROS Clever hybrid tech; powertrain, suspension and bodystyle options

CONS NO PHEVs yet; 2.1-tonne mass

An electrified diesel engine feels like an odd mix of past and future technology, like a trebuchet with a touchscreen, but we found Audi's MHEV Plus system to work quite well on the V6 petrol S5, so there is definitely an appeal in applying the same to a diesel engine to create something that's potentially extremely economical.

MHEV, or mild hybrid, is a misnomer, because the system employs both a normal mild-hybrid-style starter-generator and a 24bhp, 170lb ft motor mounted to the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox to provide torque fill and drive the car independently under low accelerator inputs.