Audi A5 Review

New name, same template. The latest Audi A5 might take over from the outgoing Audi A4 and A5, but it’s still Audi’s junior executive car and is still ideally suited to long journeys.

In the lineup, there’s a saloon-like model – which is actually a five-door hatchback, and therefore a direct replacement for the A5 Sportback – and an A5 Avant estate. No four-door saloon, no coupe and no convertible this time around. Read our review of the Audi A5 (2016-2024) if you're after the old model.

That means, for the first time in over 50 years, Audi no longer has a sporty two-door car in its model range.

Not having a car like the A5 would be much more shocking – this is Audi’s bread and butter. Although now, there are more tasty options to pick from than in a Jiffy van at lunchtime. The traditional BMW 3 Series, Mercedes C-Class and Volkswagen Passat rivals have been joined by Tesla, BYD, Polestar, MG’s IM brand and more.

The A5 is guaranteed to look smart in an office car park, and its fairly restrained styling should last the test of time. It doesn’t look particularly flashy – we were surprised how few people noticed or cared that we were test-driving a brand new Audi model. But maybe that’s a good thing.

Inside, the A5 looks impressive although, spend some time with it, and you’ll notice a few areas where it’s not quite so user-friendly as the old A4. And, even though the A5 is longer than the A4, the boot space is a little smaller in the new car.

With two massive screens joined in one glossy panel, the new A5 looks several generations more modern than the A4 it replaces.

The bits you’ll touch – like the soft leather seats and the steering wheel – feel high-quality, and there’s ambient lighting everywhere that really lifts the interior ambiance at night. 

We miss the tactility of Audi’s old physical climate control dials, with touchscreen icons now used. Audi has decided to replace the easy-to-use steering wheel buttons with less intuitive touch panels that pick up fingerprint marks for fun. And there’s far too much piano black trim throughout the cabin – not only is it the material of choice for modern superminis, but it scratches and smudges easily. Outside, the metal badges of the old car have been replaced by 2D plastic ones. All that adds up to a less premium feel overall than the A4.

Audi’s Virtual Cockpit – for years the benchmark of digital dials – has taken a backwards step, too. There’s no longer the option to display a fullscreen map view in the instrument cluster – in fact, you can’t display the built-in nav on the cluster at all. Connect via the (wireless) Apple CarPlay and the map can be displayed on the right-hand side of the screen. And then you notice that the digital display doesn’t quite fill the bezel it’s in, and it feels like Audi has skimped here as well.

The central touchscreen is more of a success, with easily navigable menus and a home screen with all your major functions on it. It clearly has a decent processor behind it because all the responses are quick.

As you’d hope, standard equipment is strong. Entry-level Sport models come with heated front seats, adaptive cruise control, a reversing camera, three-zone climate control, LED headlights with high-beam assist, and wireless phone charging. S Line largely adds cosmetic changes – such as tinted rear windows and stainless steel pedals – plus lowered sports suspension.

Top-spec Edition 1 adds a moody black styling pack, extra driver assistance tech, a top-view parking camera and a third screen – the front passenger also gets a touchscreen. This feels like an addition that’ll be rarely used, and we suspect most passengers in the UK would prefer to use their phones to scroll while being driven around.

The Audi A5 is pretty practical in isolation, but we can’t help expecting more. It’s a long car now, measuring over 4.8 metres from nose to tail – around 15cm longer than the A4. And yet, there’s slightly less boot space in the A5 versus the A4.

Slightly less than the Mercedes C-Class and BMW 3 Series, too, although the A5 saloon now has a hatchback tailgate that makes it much easier to load bulky or awkward items into the 445-litre space. The A5 Avant estate only adds another 30 litres to that figure, but of course you’ll get more in the estate than in the hatchback when you need to load above the parcel shelf.

What we’re trying to say is that the boot is a good, useful size but nowhere near class-leading. And the same is true of the rear-seat space. Legroom and headroom are both sufficient for tall adults, but your passengers aren’t going to wax lyrical about limousine-like levels of space. The Audi A6 is a better choice if you want luxurious loafing room.

There’s plenty of equipment back there, such as USBs, air conditioning controls and cupholders in the fold-down armrest. You’re best off using it as a four-seater, because the high transmission tunnel and raised centre seat squab won’t be comfortable for anyone sitting there on long journeys. Easily findable Isofix fittings add brownie points to family buyers, and the seats fold individually so you can enjoy the versatility of carrying longer items and passengers at the same time.

At first glance, it doesn’t look like anything’s changed under the bonnet. The A5 is still available with a couple of petrol engines and even a diesel – all of which are lifted from the A4.

The A5 is one of the first Audis to get its new MHEV Plus hybrid system, which might be underselling the ‘mild hybrid’ tag a little. The system uses two electric motors – one as a starter-generator and one tagged onto the gearbox – plus a 1.43kWh battery (which is quite large compared to other mild-hybrid systems).

As well as a few extra mpg and lower CO2 emissions, the system allows the car to drive on electric power for up to 18mph – so low-speed creeping and manoeuvring can be done without using any fuel.

We tested the entry-level petrol, a 2.0-litre engine with 150hp. There’s plenty of power in initial bursts of acceleration – that’s the mild-hybrid system pulling its weight – but we wouldn’t have minded a little bit more oomph at higher speeds. Handily, there’s also a 204hp version of this engine.

The sole diesel matches the higher-output petrol for engine size and power, albeit with the option of Audi’s quattro four-wheel-drive system.

One area where the A4 lagged behind the competition was in hybrid engines – because it didn’t offer any at all. This time around, the lineup has been bolstered with a plug-in hybrid, which will appeal to company-car drivers because this e-Hybrid engine has the lowest BiK tax bill. Impressively, a fully charged battery enables up to 68 miles of silent EV running, yet the combined output of 299hp means the A5 can keep pace with sports cars in a 0-62mph sprint.

There’s no RS5 just yet so, for now, the king of the sprints is the S5. This packs a petrol engine this time around (a 367hp 3.0-litre six-cylinder lump), for a 0-62mph time of just 4.5 seconds.

It might not have the agility of the BMW 3 Series, but the A5 is lovely to drive. The steering, although light, is authentic and reassuring, while the body control is fantastic – so it flows with the undulations of a road rather than being caught out by them.

In a similar vein, the ride quality is particularly impressive too. We sought out some truly terrible road surfaces, full of potholes, cracks and bumps, and the A5 skipped over them all with only the mildest of thumps. The A5 exudes confidence and competence.

The 150hp petrol is smoother and quieter than before. Leave it out of Dynamic mode and the engine is very quiet indeed, with no sense of straining when you ask for hard acceleration. Overall, the A5 is very refined, and carries on the A4’s ability to soak up lengthy motorway journeys while soothing you and your passengers.