Audi Q5 Hybrid 2011 Review - International

Audi Q5 Hybrid

Audi hasn't built a hybrid for production before, but you'd hardly know it. The Q5 we are driving is still officially a prototype, though it will debut in Geneva in March and will be on-sale mid-year… But you'd hardly know it either!

Unlike many prototypes, the cabin is perfectly finished, the body has no rattles or squeaks and the fittings around the new bits (Audi should, by now, have a good handle on building Q5s) are pin-sharp.

The petrol-electric Q5 will be the first splash in a wave of electric and hybrid Audi activity to hit the streets over the coming years and, in many ways, it's also the most conventional. Audi, Toyota, Honda, Chevrolet and a few others will all point to microscopic differences in their parallel hybrid technology, but they're all running a similar philosophy, with the wheels turning via either their petrol or electric motors. Sometimes, they also run a combination of both, and that's where the Q5's at, too.

Its base engine is the 2.0-litre, direct-injection TFSI motor that's already available in everything from the A3 to the Q5. In the hybrid Q5 Audi combines it with an electric motor up front and a lithium-ion battery pack down the back. A ‘proper' SUV the sparky Q5 retains its all-wheel drive.

Audi has been clever in the packaging, following the recent German tradition of slotting the electric motor in between the engine and the eight-speed automatic gearbox and using it (and a wet clutch pack) to replace the normal torque converter. There's no starter anymore, because the electric motor puts its hand up for that role, along with the job of generating 12-volt power to power up the ‘normal' bits, like the air conditioner, the water pump and the power steering.

Audi claims there are five driving modes, but three of them needn't bother you. It is anticipating cities adopting ‘green zones' where you won't be able to drive on internal combustion power, so the Q5 Hybrid has a full electric mode, driving on the 211Nm/33kW electric motor alone.

But, be warned, it won't take you far. At 38kg the 266 volt lithium-ion battery pack is, one of the lightest in the business. The reason -- it has only 72 cells and can only store 1.3 kW/hr of energy. At full throttle in electric mode, that's measured in seconds, rather than minutes.

Audi insists that the Q5 can hit 100km as a pure electric car and that, at a steady 60km/h, will run electrically for 3km. On our test, that was only feasible when hills, traffic lights and other drivers cooperated completely. Usually, the car's new brain flicked the switch to turn on the petrol motor far sooner than that.

There's also a Sport mode, which sees the electric motor team up with the turbo petrol engine to add more urge to the surge on hard acceleration. When that happens, it takes the car's total output to 180kW and 480Nm, punching the Q5 to 100km/h in 7.1 seconds and up to 222km/h.

There's also the standard Drive mode, which utilizes both motors to maximise efficiency, and Audi claims 7.0L/100km and 160 grams of CO2 on the combined cycle, which isn't bad from 1998kg.

The interesting thing here was not that the Q5 seemed production ready, even in the areas where the new technology sits, but that it seemed to fall down in its established knowhow. The 2.0 petrol  turbo engine has been around for a while now, but Audi has changed some critical pieces and while it works strongly, its noise, vibration and harshness levels weren't what we expected. Indeed, the engine felt coarse and unduly loud and a bit booming at medium revs and then unwilling to push harder at higher rpm.

A critical ability in a hybrid is the seamless switch from electric power to petrol power and back again, but the Q5's petrol motor gave a significant shudder when it fired up – even more of a shudder than standard Audi diesels give when their start-stop systems restart. It's entirely possible that this was a quirk typical of a prototype, where different engines are thrown into different chassis for a host of reasons, but it didn't feel special and needs to be addressed.

The electric motor worked seamlessly, though. It's quiet and the battery pack, sitting beneath the rear cargo floor, only takes away the under-floor space that most people forget they have anyway.

It provides a driving challenge, too, because the motor turns into a generator when you ease off the throttle on downhills or brake lightly. This is when it recharges its batteries (and accounts for the other two “modes”) and Audi's got the brake pedal feel more consistent with normal braking systems than, say, Mercedes-Benz has with its S 400h.

It's also pretty quick when both motors are putting their shoulders to the wheel. The beauty of electric motors is that, while its 211Nm is a significant number, it provides that much turning force from the instant you touch the pedal. An internal combustion engine needs to wait until the engine revs build to its torque peak; the electric doesn't and is, literally, like flicking a switch to ‘Maximum Torque'.

The ride quality and interior packaging is virtually unchanged, and the handling doesn't lose anything either, because there's the extra weight of the battery pack at the back balancing the permanently excited synchronous electric motor up the front.

Yet, while Audi needs to work on smoothing out the petrol engine and its restarting process, the real problem might be that the diesel A5 is more economical and the V6 petrol Q5 is faster. So what's the point?

One may be that this system slots neatly into Audi's new architecture, with a longitudinal engine layout up front and all-wheel drive, so it will fit inside the A4, A6 and the A8 quite easily. Another may be penetration into the US market.

What it won't do, however, is provide faster or more-economical Q5 options. Audi already has those on its books…

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