Audi Q7 review

Audi comes off well with the new Q7. So that’s the company’s ‘Panoramic display concept’ which consists of an 11.9-inch ‘virtual cockpit plus’ driver’s display and 14.5-inch MMI touchscreen all faired into the same sweep. All versions get the 12.3-inch passenger display angled away from the driver.

There’s a smartphone love-in with AI assistant and voice control (standard on all models), standard dashboard lighting that flashes when the indicators are on, and on locking/unlocking welcomes you into the car and all that jazz, more ADAS than most will know what to do with, and generally it feels quite techy and grown-up.

So there’s lots of tech, but the actual design feels more pared back than it is – and that’s a good thing. There doesn’t seem to be too much info overload; the hierarchies seem to be sensible, the screen and camera quality is excellent and the head-up display is really very nicely animated. Oh, and the front seats get a pair of magnetic and cooled wireless phone chargers in the centre console, which are really smart.

It’s also got fully electric doors all-round. Which are desperately pointless, although this is also not specifically an Audi issue. They’re fun to show people, but soon start getting annoying when you’re stood in the arc of the sensor and they don’t open, or open fully when you just want to slide out with the minimum fuss. The driver’s door also closes as soon as you get into the driver’s seat and put your foot on the brake, which is more annoying than it sounds.

And while we’re on the subject of unnecessary electrical operation, the second and third rows are all motored, but can be glacially slow. So putting all the seats down might be one-touch (from the boot buttons), but it initiates a complex choreography of snail-crawling seat movement. And those rear seats? They aren’t massive, so small people and occasional use only.

What’s it really good/bad at?

Apart from the bijou third row seating arrangement (which all get a USB and a cupholder), the Q7 is actually pretty good at space for five, plus a mountain of gear. All UK Q7s are seven-seat, and all seats bar the driver’s seat are IsoFix. Which feels like a niche need for nursery transport.

Second row backrests can be electrically adjusted or folded in either a 65/35 or 35/30/35 split thanks to a manually foldable centre cut-out, and you can fold all the other stuff via buttons in the boot. That’s 722 litres in five-seat mode, just under 2,000 in two-seat configuration – positively van-like.

And you can get adults in the back if you need to, albeit only if they have unusually short limbs and torsos, but that’s okay because they can have really long necks and massive heads, because the roof now has a slimmer structure for more cranium space.

All this is feels slightly tight, because the Q7 is not small. Which seems a stupid thing to say, but this is a car that’s over five metres long (5,056mm), more than a couple wide (2,101mm) and 1.7-1.8-metres tall (1,757-1,820mm) depending on the suspension setting. The new Q9 will have an even bigger footprint, but the same height.