Audi confirms Q7-based SUV limo

Audi will launch an all-new SUV limousine to sit alongside its most expensive sedan at the top of its line-up. The co-flagship role of the new uber-crossover dubbed Q8 was confirmed by Audi boss Rupert Stadler.

Stadler confirmed the SUV will be positioned alongside the A8 as the flagship of the brand’s SUV family when it goes on sale in late 2018

The all-new A8 will be seen at October’s Paris Motor Show.

The Q8 will go head to head with models like BMW’s X6, the Range Rover Sport and Mercedes-Benz’s GLS and top-end GLE variants. It will start with 3.0-litre TDI power and move all the way through to the SQ8 variant with two turbochargers and an electric compressor.

It is just one of seven new SUV models Audi plans to launch before 2020, including the all-electric, battery-powered Q6, which was shown at last year’s Frankfurt Motor Show in the guise of the e-tron Quattro concept.

With a third of Audi’s sales now starting with the letter Q, the Q8 will join a fleet that already includes the just-launched Q2 city crossover, the Q3, the Q5 and the new Q7. The Q1 and Q4 families are solidly in their development phases.

“I could imagine an executive being driven to work every day in their A8 and then spending the weekend driving themselves in their Q8,” Stadler told Autocar.

“The Q8 will have global appeal in all of the major markets -- Europe, China, America, Russia and more -- so we are very excited about it.”

The Q8’s development has been hastened and made more affordable by twinning the car’s technology with the well-received current Q7, giving it a predictable ride-and-handling poise.

It will also mean the easy adoption of petrol, diesel and two plug-in hybrid powertrains, including a plug-in hybrid system Audi has developed with Porsche that promises to give the Q8 50km of pure-electric running.

The first is an already-announced diesel-electric plug-in hybrid system based around the 3.0-litre V6 TDI and which will debut on the Q7. The second is a still-secret petrol-electric powertrain developed for the big Audi SUVs and Porsche’s Cayenne.

That will also mean the Q8 will use the Q7’s 48-volt power system in concert with traditional 12-volt power, facilitating everything from partly-autonomous driving to laser headlights and high-definition OLED indicator lights.

It won’t look much like the Q7, though, adopting only the MLB Evo architecture’s hard points and leaving Audi’s design chief Marc Lichte a free hand everywhere else.

Where the Q7 (along with the A4 and A5) was the last gasp of the old, somewhat stymied design program, the Q8 will take some of the design language off Lichte’s admired Prologue concept car and turn it into a big, sleek SUV.

The 5.05-metre long, 1.97-metre wide Q8 will ride on the Q7’s 2990mm wheelbase and will have far more rake on its windscreen angle and will be less boxy, ungainly and upright than the otherwise terrific Q7. It will ride on a 1680mm front track width, while the rear tyres are 10mm further apart.

The five-door SUV will also use a roof-hinged liftback for its tailgate operation, with most of the rake arriving after the C-pillar, leaving rear headroom unimpeded by styling demands.

It’s also said to be 1690mm tall, 50mm lower than the Q7, all of which compares nicely to the Range Rover Sport (4.85m long, 1.985m wide and 1.78m high) and the GLE Mercedes (4.9m, 2m, 1.7m).

It promises to be lighter than its rivals, too, with at least some models slated to hit the road beneath two tonnes thanks to a smattering of carbon-fibre structural parts.

Q8 will usher in Audi’s new generation of petrol-powered vee motors, developed in conjunction with Porsche, which will also find homes in Volkswagen’s Touareg and the full Bentley model range.

Sharing a 90-degree architecture, it follows BMW’s philosophy of using a standardized 500cc single cylinder as a base, and then using modular construction to develop production motors off it.

The KoVoMo (Konzern Vee Motoren) engines will almost certainly be a 3.0-litre V6 and a 4.0-litre V8, replacing the 4.0-litre Audi V8 that has served so well in the larger Audis, all the way through to the RS6 and RS7.

While electric compressors are the standout technical feature of the current SQ7, the initial batch of KoVoMo engines will use traditional exhaust gas-driven turbochargers.