It is known: car manufacturers’ slogans are, in most cases, marketing gimmicks. Beautiful, neat phrases, suitable to be placed under a photograph. Then the car arrives, and the slogan stays there, a bit embarrassed, like a hat too elegant on an ordinary head. With the newborn Audi RS 5, however, the famous “cutting-edge technology” stops being a slogan and becomes a caption. It simply describes what the car is….
In Ingolstadt, they have indeed decided that the flagship sports car of the A5 family — the one that used to be called A4 for the older and more pedantic — would be born as a plug-in hybrid. Many think it is a kind of ecological whim applied at the last minute, like a lettuce leaf on a plate of ribs, but they are very wrong: the system is the heart of the car. A 2.9-liter 510-horsepower V6 petrol engine, plus a 177-horsepower electric motor, plus a rechargeable “battery” of almost 26 kilowatt-hours: together they make something like 639 horsepower and 825 newton-meters. A monstrosity: to understand, the old RS 4 (old in a manner of speaking because even if just retired it is still very current) seems slow in comparison. Here the fateful 0-100 happens in 3.6 seconds. If you pay for the right package, the top speed rises to 285 km/h. There is also a “boost” button on the steering wheel: ten seconds of maximum thrust, as if the car grants you, on command, a small burst of boldness.
And then, since the RS 5 will end up in the hands of enthusiasts (obviously), the car has a function called Audi Driving Experience that records accelerator, brake, understeer, oversteer, G-forces, lap times. If the circuit is not on the map, it invents it by itself after one lap. On the mirror, on request, there is a dashcam to review your maneuvers.
And we come to the most disputed point, the one many have (wrongly) called a paradox. That is the weight. It would be foolish to pretend not to see it. This is a sports car weighing 2,355 kilos in sedan version, 2,370 if you choose the Avant, that is the station wagon. But on the road it feels like a feather, not so much because of the power (which is known to easily erase the kilos), but because of the setup, the torque distribution, the traction. So the RS5 in the end is incredibly consistent with its hyper-aggressive design.
The fenders are wider, the grille is a honeycomb, the headlights recall the checkered flag, at the back there are oval exhausts that change voice depending on the selected mood. It shows its muscles, as they say. Then, in the city, it can go up to 87 kilometers on electric power, with zero local emissions. It is the first time that the flagship version of this family accepts the plug. So it turns out that the plug-in hybrid system, besides giving a dynamic like a true supercar, allows doing unheard-of things for a car of this kind, like crossing the restricted traffic zone with the air of someone who has done their homework.
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Here technology stops being ornament and becomes character. The quattro all-wheel drive has a dynamic torque control so fast that it redistributes the thrust between the rear wheels in fifteen milliseconds. The suspensions adjust compression and extension like two distinct thoughts. The steering is direct. The carbon-ceramic brakes lose about thirty kilos: true, in an object that weighs more than twenty-three quintals, it seems a courtesy gesture, but it is the dynamics that make the difference.
Inside, three screens, box graphics, supportive seats, flat-bottom steering wheel, microfiber, carbon fiber. The cabin, in summary, invites telemetry.
You could smile, and in part it is legitimate. A car that weighs like a small van, accelerates like a supercar, and promises to do the shopping silently is a fairly accurate portrait of our time: we want everything, and we also want a clear conscience. We want the roar and the decorum. We want the track and the condominium. We want the boost, but only for ten seconds, because then you have to come back. Audi, for half a century, has repeated that it is at the cutting edge of technology. This time the technology is exactly this: not choosing. Keeping together the V6 and the battery, Neckarsulm and the ZTL, 285 km/h and 84 electric kilometers.
Prices start from 112,700 euros for the sedan and 115,100 for the Avant. The Performance versions go up by about nine thousand. Orders start these days but you buy a sophisticated concept more than a car. That is, that progress is no longer the straight line of futurists, but a very sophisticated, very expensive, and, in its own way, honest compromise. Cutting-edge technology in the true sense of the word.
