Audi RS5: Full test of the V6 hyper-wagon that beats physics
Because the RS5 is now a plug-in hybrid, when you press the start button there isn’t a flare of revs but simply a message on the screen to say that the car is ready to drive.
You can then proceed to drive your 630bhp super-saloon as a 174bhp EV if you wish. For some people, being able to keep the engine for best will add an extra dimension, because the RS5 functions well enough as an EV. It will still hit 60mph in 10.5sec and the shift paddles will adjust the level of regen. Because the motor is upstream of the transmission, it goes through the gears as you drive and you can hear the whine of the motor rise and fall, sounding a bit like a supercharger without an engine. In the standard drive modes, the engine will come in smoothly as and when it’s needed, taking into account navigation data, much like any other A5 E-Hybrid.
But to drive the RS5 in electric mode does feel like denying yourself something. Switch to one of the RS modes, or to S on the gear selector, and the V6 will fire up. Contrary to what the drainpipe exhausts promise, its voice is actually fairly muted. At low revs, it’s quite gravelly and rather similar to the turbo sixes in the BMW M3 and Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio. It feels quite free-revving, and in the higher registers it clears its throat and gains more of a V6 bellow without ever becoming truly loud or especially distinctive. Lift off at the right moment and you might even hear some pops from the exhaust.
With petrol and electric power joining forces, you have a monstrous 630bhp at your disposal – but also 2.4 tonnes of weight to deal with. As a result, the RS5 is clearly very fast but, much as we found with the BMW M5, outright performance is perhaps not as much of a leap forward as you might hope. The RS5 hit 60mph from rest 0.6sec quicker than the RS4 Avant of 2018, but that was tested in the damp. In fourth gear, the RS5’s 30-70mph time was only 0.2sec quicker. The mighty BMW M4 CS, 87bhp down but also 661kg lighter, out-accelerates it in all metrics.
Where you do notice the electric punch is in the accelerator response. The 2.9-litre V6 was never a particularly laggy engine, but the RS5 seems to delight in flinging you back in your seat when you floor the throttle, no matter which gear it’s in.
Like most of its rivals, the RS5 uses ZF’s eight-speed automatic gearbox, which manages to combine smoothness at low speeds with super-saloon-appropriate shift speeds when you put the hammer down. Most of the time it responds well enough to the paddles, but if you try to shift within 500rpm or so of the redline it will get flustered and the engine will bang into the limiter.
Under braking, you can again see the work Audi has done to make sure the 2.4 tonnes bother you as little as possible. While the old RS4 had ‘mere’ 375mm front discs and 330mm rears, the RS5 gets an upgrade to 420mm at the front and 400mm at the back. Our test car had the standard iron discs, but carbon-ceramics are an option – one that we would recommend if you plan to take your RS5 on track frequently. We recorded good stopping distances in both the dry and the wet and no notable change in retardation during our fade test. However, we noticed a puff of smoke after slowing down from 160mph in our acceleration test runs and the discs had a blue tinge afterwards, so they were clearly working hard. The RS5 has brake-by-wire technology, which produces a nicely solid pedal feel that’s very easy to modulate at all speeds.
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