There is a particular kind of automotive ridiculousness that I find charming. The 2026 Audi SQ5 is a family crossover with five seats, a useful cargo area, and all-wheel drive. It’s also capable of launching itself to 60 mph in 4.6 seconds. Because apparently groceries need to be accelerated urgently.
At a glance
- Good balance between performance and practicality
- Not particularly engaging all of the time
- Middling fuel economy
- Luxury fitment and drive appeal aren’t compromised
The SQ5 occupies that increasingly crowded middle ground between luxury crossover and performance vehicle. It isn't quite a sports car pretending to be an SUV, nor is it merely a Q5 with an attitude problem. Instead, Audi has built something that works remarkably well as everyday transportation while keeping a substantial reserve of mischievousness for those moments when an empty stretch of road appears.
For 2026, the SQ5 carries over the basic formula introduced with the latest-generation Q5 family. The SQ5 remains one of those vehicles that makes considerably more sense after spending some time behind the wheel than it does while reading its specification sheet.
Even though that specification sheet is pretty good.
Under the hood is Audi's turbocharged 3.0-liter V6, producing 362 horsepower (266 kW) and 406 lb-ft (550.5 Nm) of torque. That power is sent through a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission to Audi's quattro all-wheel-drive system. As a side note, I still do not know why Audi, a German company, uses a Latinate term for its four-wheel drive. Anyway, Audi quotes a 4.6-second 0-to-60-mph (92 km/h) time. Most of us in the real world can get around 5 or so seconds for ours.
That is enough acceleration to make merging onto a freeway feel less like joining traffic and more like issuing a challenge to it.
The engine is particularly good because it doesn't feel like a turbocharged engine desperately trying to disguise itself as something larger. Torque arrives early, with the bulk of the 406 lb-ft available from low engine speeds, and the SQ5 builds speed with the sort of effortless authority that expensive German machinery has perfected. Between the engine’s beautiful notes, the transmission’s anticipatory shifts, and the exhaust’s subtly understated vibrato, the SQ5 is a wonderful piece of symmetry.
The seven-speed dual-clutch transmission shifts quickly when asked via manual paddle shifting, and simply does its job effortlessly otherwise. Leave it in its normal mode and the SQ5 behaves like a civilized luxury crossover. Select a sportier setting and it becomes considerably more interested in what your right foot is doing.
This is one of the 2026 SQ5's biggest strengths. You don't have to live with a permanently angry vehicle just because you bought the performance version.
Audi's quattro all-wheel drive has been one of the company's signature technologies for decades, and here it serves a purpose beyond simply providing additional traction when the weather turns unpleasant. The SQ5 feels planted. Very planted.
That is both a compliment and, depending on your expectations, a minor criticism.
This isn't a lightweight sports car. The SQ5 weighs roughly 4,400 lb (1,996 kg), depending on configuration. Physics remains stubbornly unwilling to negotiate with Audi's engineers, so there is only so much that suspension tuning and electronics can do with that much mass. Even so, Audi has done quite a lot.
The SQ5 corners confidently, remains composed when pushed, and delivers the sort of stability that makes bad weather considerably less intimidating. The available performance hardware and sport-oriented chassis tuning give it enough capability that the driver can have fun without feeling as though the vehicle is constantly at odds with that.
The steering, however, isn't particularly communicative. You get plenty of precision, but not necessarily a flood of information through the wheel. That's increasingly common in modern performance vehicles, and the SQ5 is no exception. We can blame the proliferation of electric-assist power steering for most of that.
The result is more "fast luxury crossover" than "SUV sports car."
The real upside to the Audi SQ5 is that it doesn't punish luxury buyers for getting the fast version. The cabin is quiet, the seats are supportive, and there's enough space for adults in both rows. That latter point is thanks to the redesigned Q5 platform bringing useful improvements to rear-seat accommodations.
Cargo capacity in this SUV is 27.6 cubic feet (782 liters) behind the rear seats and 57.1 cubic feet (1,617 liters) with them folded. Those are respectable numbers for a compact luxury SUV.
The conventional SQ5 is therefore considerably more practical than something wearing the Sportback roofline. If you're buying an SUV because you occasionally need to carry actual things, the regular body style is the obvious choice.
The SQ5 features a 11.9-inch digital instrument display and a 14.5-inch central infotainment screen. A 10.9-inch passenger display is available and was in the SQ5 I drove for a week. That screen was one of the few passenger-side screens that didn’t constantly throw glare and random reflections at me while driving. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are supported, and Audi also offers a head-up display and Bang & Olufsen audio system. I highly recommend that B&O system.
Audi has made some sensible changes for 2026. The steering-wheel controls return to tactile thumbwheels rather than the touch-sensitive arrangement that was, to put it politely, a solution in search of a problem. The infotainment graphics have also been updated. They’re easier to understand and use, though they’re still sometimes a distraction rather than a benefit.
A 362-hp turbocharged V6 in a 4,400-lb SUV isn't exactly a recipe for thrift. Yet the SQ5 is rated around 21 mpg city and 28 mpg highway (11.2 / 8.4 l/100km). The precise number depends on packaging. In the real world, I managed to get 27.3 mpg (8.6 l/100km) in my highway loop test. At lower altitudes, the SQ5 can probably beat its highway mpg rating by a point or two.
Those numbers aren't Prius territory, obviously, but they are perfectly reasonable considering the performance available.
The 2026 SQ5 starts around US$66,695 before options, but including US destination charges. That's not inexpensive. And inevitably, buyers will start checking boxes and pushing that price tag upwards.
This is hardly unique to Audi. BMW and Mercedes-Benz are perfectly happy to play the same game. The SQ5's problem isn't that it is uniquely expensive; it's that the entire luxury compact crossover category has discovered the financial benefits of making options extremely tempting.
The 2026 Audi SQ5 is not the most extreme performance crossover on the market. It doesn't need to be, though, because its appeal comes from balance. It has enough power to be genuinely quick, enough chassis capability to be entertaining, enough comfort to serve as a daily driver, and enough cargo capacity to justify the "SUV" part of its name. It can tow up to 4,400 lb (1,996 kg), too, which adds another layer of usefulness to the package.
What it doesn't do particularly well is provide the raw, visceral experience that some enthusiasts expect from an S-badged Audi. The steering could communicate more, and the vehicle's substantial mass is always lurking somewhere underneath the otherwise impressive dynamics.
But the SQ5 isn't supposed to be a Porsche 911 with a hatchback. It's the vehicle for someone who wants to drive to work comfortably on Monday, haul luggage on Friday, deal with snow on Saturday morning, and then discover an empty mountain road Saturday afternoon.
In that role, the SQ5 is exceptionally good. The 2026 Audi SQ5 is, in other words, a very modern German performance SUV.
Product page: 2026 Audi SQ5
