New Audi A7 launched

If you were underwhelmed by the conservative style of Audi’s new A8 limousine, don’t fret. The company still has a solution in the unashamedly design-focused, second-generation A7.

The premium Bavarian car-maker pulled the covers off its full-size liftback at a dinner in its home town of Ingolstadt overnight, backing up its promises that it would continue to carve out a uniquely niche in the field of luxury cars.

Due to be publicly shown for the first time at next month’s Los Angeles motor show, the A7 continues as a five-door liftback, but adding new A8-sourced features like all-wheel steering and a radical new interior.

It will also join the A8 as the first production cars to graduate to 48-volt mild-hybrid electrical systems to propel the steel-aluminium composite bodyshells.

The first generation of the A7 stood largely alone, with its five-door format keeping it aloof from even Benz’s own overtly design-oriented CLS. Since then, though, BMW has replaced its ugly duckling 5 Series Gran Turismo with the not-quite-a-swan 6 Series Gran Turismo, so the competition should be fiercer.

The crisp interior retains the swooping roofline and the sculpted light catcher behind the rear wheel while picking up sharp creases and unfathomably tight panel shutlines, with Audi claiming a production tolerance of less than 0.1mm.

While the A7’s body style refused to date over its seven-year lifespan, the interior couldn’t make the same claim, with its instrument cluster and infotainment systems aging rapidly after its 2014 facelift.

While the car shares its architecture, electrical and infotainment systems with the A8 and the next A6, its gestation wasn’t as simple as it might have been. Audi needed three development bosses to oversee it, even though CEO Rupert Stadler approved it for production as long ago as 2014.

Like the A8, Audi insists the A7 will set new benchmarks for noise suppression, ride comfort and refinement, which would make one of the world’s long-distance cruisers almost irresistible, if true.

New mechanicals
While the current A7 took its power from everything from a 3.0-litre V6 petrol engine to a wickedly powerful 4.0-litre, twin-turbo V8 in the RS 7, the new one will launch with just one powertrain – the petrol-powered, mild-hybrid V6 A7 55 TFSI.

The engines use a belt-alternator starter system to regenerate energy and then deploy up to 12kW of power into the engine’s crankshaft under acceleration. It can also go into a freewheeling coast mode between 55km/h and 160km/h to save energy and lower its fuel consumption.

The V6 delivers 250kW and 500Nm, letting the big coupe burst to 100km/h in 5.3 seconds, while using 6.8L/100km (154g/km of CO2) on the NEDC test cycle.

Its standard powertrain comes with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive, which only cranks up the rear wheels on demand. The mighty all-wheel drive quattro system of the old car has been reduced to a hang-on system.

Other powertrains will follow once Audi is confident the production lines are hitting their accuracy targets, which will take some doing.

The new A7 only just slips beneath the five-metre barrier, at 4969mm long, which makes it about 17cm shorter than the standard A8, and it rides on a 2926mm wheelbase.

It retains its solid stance on the road, thanks to a low 1422mm roofline and a squat 1908mm width. That all makes it fractionally higher (2mm), wider (2mm) and shorter (14mm) than its predecessor.

New technologies
It retains the basic outline of the old A7, but adds new, taut surfacing and dives deep into Audi’s pool of OLED and Laser lighting technology to add a set of welcome and farewell light shows that would shame KITT and David Hasselhoff.

Like the A8, there’s a full-width rear lighting system, with 13 individual lighting pieces and a long light bar, all geared up to delivering a theatrical performance every time the car is locked or unlocked.

It’s not likely to scare off fans of the current car, and continues with frameless doors and windows and a tailgate that still hinges from the roof to give unimpeded access to its 535-litre luggage area. This rises to 1390 litres with the seats folded down, and it holds two golf bags horizontally.

Inside, there is a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster as standard equipment, combined with a 10.1-inch infotainment screen that responds to touch, voice or written command and have haptic feedback.

Like it does in the A8, the introduction of touch-screens wipes away an entire generation of buttons and knobs, giving the driver-focused cabin a far cleaner look than it has today.

It uses a short, flat-topped gear selector, similar to the one in the A8, which is largely designed for drivers to rest their wrists on while they’re writing on the lower touchscreen, which usually sees service as the controller for the climate-controlled air conditioning system.

The contoured front seats have ventilation, heating and massage functions, while the rear of the cabin can be configured with either two individual seats or a 2+1 setup, both of which boast 20mm more legroom despite the slight reduction in overall length.

It uses all the same connectivity as the A8, complete with permanent 4G connection and Car-to-X and traffic sign services to use swarm intelligence for real-time traffic information. If you think that’s complex, up to seven drivers can store up to setup parameters, and there are more than 400 parameters to set, so...

It will also introduce a remote garage pilot next year, which will automously drive the A7 into and out of garages or tight parking spots, even with the driver standing outside the car operating it from a smartphone application.

Like the A8, it’s pre-engineered for the time when Level 3 autonomy becomes legislative reality, so there’s a suite of up to five cameras, five radar sensors, 12 ultra-sonic sensors and a laser LiDar scanner, networked via the zFas controller that manages the 39 driver assistance systems in the A7.

New design
Its single-frame grille isn’t quite as imposing as it is on the A8, but it’s still large enough and imposing enough to be accused of lacking grace and proportion, though it adopts enough of the prologue concept car’s surfacing to compensate.

The glasshouse uses six windows, but is quite shallow to allow for greater body sculpting and a low roof line, sloping steeply to the rear, which also ties it in to the original A7.

It retains the active pop-up spoiler, which it fires out of the tailgate at speeds above 120km/h to reduce lift at highway speeds.

The initial cars will also offer an S-Line design trim to give it a sportier look, which delivers a glossier look to the grille, the sills and the rear diffuser.