Audi Q5 55 TFSIe quattro 2019 UK first drive

What difference can 1g/km of CO2 make? To the planet, it’s a very small step in the right direction. But for company car drivers, it can mean a significant financial saving when - as here, with this first in a soon-to-be-long line of new Audi plug-in hybrids - it dips official emissions below 50g/km.

The tax changes come into force next year and are set to super-incentivise fully electric cars and encourage take up of hybrids, dropping BIK tax from 16% to 14%. Little wonder, then, that Audi’s spreadsheet wizards are predicting keen sales of this Audi Q5 TFSIe, which delivers not just dazzling emissions figures but also SQ5-baiting levels of straight-line performance.

In top-level technical terms, this Q5 55 TFSIe (there’s also a less performant 50 TFSIe) mates a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine to an electric motor powered by a 14.1kWh lithium ion battery. On paper, working together, the two units can deliver 362bhp, with a top speed of 148mph and a 0-62mph time of 5.3sec. The car can also travel a claimed 26 miles on electric-only power, with a top speed of 84mph. 

Alas, even with the new testing system, hybrid economy claims mean little, because so much depends on how you drive. Do lots of short journeys and you’ll sip fuel, go a long way at motorway speeds you’ll pay a price for lugging all the depleted hybrid ancilliaries around. Officially combined fuel economy is rated at 113mpg - or 32.5mpg for the petrol engine alone. 

Only if you really push do you notice the added weight of the hybrid system, but so long as you aren’t after the last degrees of dynamic verve, as surely few Audi Q5 buyers are, the results are close to excellence.

The electric drive helps meter out measured performance almost on demand, and the all-out performance is eye-catchingly rapid should you need to race from the lights or merge onto the motorway in a hurry. As ever, drive in electric-only mode and you're smothered in silence and can help yourself to lashings of torque; it really is the finest way to travel.

It’s also dutifully comfortable on all surfaces and at all speeds, even on the 19in wheels and standard steel suspension of our test car (optional air suspension is available on higher trim levels). Refinement is top-notch, even when the engine kicks in, and it delivers a decently sporty note if you really open the taps.

Beyond that, all of the usual Audi attributes around fit and finish and the quality of the materials apply, and you’d be hard pressed to find any significant differences to a standard Q5 beyond a few different dials and gauges and the electric filler cap on the offside. The only major negative is that the boot capacity is reduced by a substantial 95 litres, the space sacrificed to house the batteries. For such a large car, that’s enough to put off some buyers.