When it was first rolled out six years ago, the Audi Q7 performance SUV immediately achieved a leadership position – as a sporty, comfortable as well as high-performance recreational and business vehicle on a grand scale. Now Audi is making it even better – more striking and more efficient, with lower emissions.
Its dynamic proportions and distinctive lines express its character, and subtle modifications now endow its styling with even more elegance. The sporty exterior design of the Audi Q7 has been revised to incorporate the newly designed radiator grille and bumpers and the new xenon headlights with LED daytime running lights. The rear has been given a new and distinct 3D shape as well as new LED rear lights. A multitude of improvements in the interior enhance the sense of elegance: the new instrument cluster, ambient lighting in the door linings, new inlays and leather choices as well as many chrome enhanced elements.
The Audi Q7 remains extremely spacious and highly variable on the interior, with up to seven seats and luggage space of up to 2,035 liters. Fitting for a vehicle of its class the Audi Q7 comes with an outstanding array of standard equipment: Servotronic, four zone automatic air conditioning, leather seats with electric seat adjustment and lumbar support for the front, five years free service, rear side airbags, ISOFIX child seat preparation and many more, depending on the chosen engine.
Further highly advanced assistance and infotainment systems are available as an option and include among others climate-controlled comfort seats, high beam assist, adaptive light including cornering lights and for the first time also a special superhighway beam.
A new engine lineup is available for the Q7 SUV in the Middle East. The new range comprises two gasoline engines, both V6 units but with different power outputs, as well as a second-generation 4.2 V8 TDI diesel engine. The mighty V12 TDI diesel completes the range.
The new 3.0 TFSI gasoline engines embody Audi’s downsizing strategy. Engine displacement was replaced with supercharging, which allows for vigorous thrust and spontaneous throttle response on the large high-performance SUV. The basic version develops 272 hp and has a maximum torque of 400 Nm over a broad engine-speed range from 2,250 to 4,750 rpm. It accelerates the Q7 in 7.9 seconds from a standing start to 100 km/h. The more powerful version, the 3.0 TFSI Supercharged, delivers 333 hp and a torque of 440 Nm between 2,900 and 5,300 rpm. 100 km/h are reached in 6.9 seconds. Both versions of the 3.0 TFSI are impressively efficient: in the EU fuel consumption test cycle they are content with 10.7 liters per 100 kilometers. Compared with the previous engines, the 3.6 FSI and the 4.2 FSI, fuel consumption has been reduced by 1.4 and 2.0 l/100 km – 12 and 16 percent respectively.
The Q7 4.2 TDI has also had its fuel consumption drastically reduced – from 9.9 to 9.2 liters per 100 km. Yet at the same time the V8 diesel, with its unchanged power output of 340 hp, delivers more torque than before. It now supplies a vigorous 800 Nm between engine speeds of 1,750 and 2,750 rpm and accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 6.4 seconds. The Audi Q7 V12 TDI is the most powerful diesel SUV in the world. Its 6-liter twelve-cylinder TDI engine develops 500 hp and delivers 1,000 Nm of torque between 1,750 and 3,250 rpm. Despite a time of just 5.5 seconds from zero to 100 km/h, it is content with a fuel consumption of only 11.3 liters per 100 kilometers.
All the engines for the Q7 combine two technologies: forced induction and direct fuel injection. A high-performance recuperation system that recovers energy during braking is also a standard item. Audi has given all six- and eight-cylinder Q7 versions a new automatic transmission. The eight-speed tiptronic lowers fuel consumption by about five percent. To cut fuel consumption still further, the torque converter lockup clutch eliminates slip even at low engine speeds.
The Audi Q7 starts from USD 56,948 for the 3.0 TFSI quattro, USD 67,575 for the 3.0 TFSI Supercharged quattro, USD 75,749 for the 4.2 TDI quattro and USD 133,243 for the 6.0 TDI V12. .
Not available in the Middle East yet, but interesting to note nonetheless, is the new 3.0 TDI clean diesel engine with the world’s cleanest diesel technology. It puts out 176 kW (240 bhp) and delivers as much as 550 Nm between 2,000 and 2,250 rpm, yet, despite highly complex exhaust gas recirculation, it consumes just 8.9 liters/100 km. It meets the strict LEV II Bin 5 US standard and already complies with the Euro 6 limits announced for 2014.
