Is This The Perfect Car for 2026? (Audi A5 Hybrid Avant 2026 Review)
I’m Tom Baker. This is Chasing Cars. And is this Audi A5 Hybrid next to me the perfect car? Well, if you’re not into SUVs, it just might be. It’s also pretty attractive, at least to my eyes. But what this A5 plug-in hybrid has achieved under the skin is actually really quite compelling for the times that we’re living in, late 2025, early 2026. Firstly, there’s no extra charge to go plug-in hybrid over the regular 200 kW quattro petrol version of the A5 here in Australia. Even though the plug-in hybrid gets 100ks of electric range as tested, it gets another 70 kW of combined power and a few other little bits of spec over the regular petrol. Well, Audi’s not a charity. The reason they’re doing this is in order to try and push buyers into the plug-in hybrid. In today’s video, we’ll check out whether or not that is good for you. We’ll have a look at the interior, the back seat, and the boot of this station wagon version of the A5, but there is a sportback version with sort of a hatchback liftgate as well, if you prefer that. And then we’ll assess the running cost of this vehicle, see what it’s really going to cost you, and then take a drive in the A5 E hybrid to see whether this vehicle is competitive with not just the likes of the 3 Series and the C-Class, but of course SUVs that most people buy these days by default. But before we get started, hit subscribe down below. Chasing Cars, honest reviews of your next car, brought to you by Direct. Outside, I think the A5 is a pretty attractive vehicle compared to some of its rivals. It’s almost like Audi looked at the various controversial premium car designs from the last few years. You know, the way BMW styled several of its recent models and just gone, you know what? We don’t want to be a part of that. And so, they’ve just released a pretty classically handsome design. And I don’t have an issue with that. To me, this is a good-look car. The Assari blue paintwork might be a $3,400 option, but it really works with the shape. Now, inside things are a slightly different story because Audi has chosen to push the cabins forward on its cars rather than relying on kind of its previous interior design tropes, which were based around making the technology fairly subtle and using a lot of knurled metal elements and things like that, which I really liked. I think a lot of people did. Now we’ve got a lot of piano black, much bigger screens bringing the technology forward and potentially a little bit too much. So now Audi seems to have heard this feedback and what I’m hearing is that things like the facelift of this car when that eventually arrives will step things back a little bit, maybe bring some of the textures back, but for the next couple of years, this is what we’ve got. Thankfully, build quality is still really excellent. Stuff is screwed together beautifully in this car, but there’s no avoiding this huge curved glass panel up here is quite in your face and takes a bit to get used to. We’ve got a 14 1/2 in touchscreen here, which is very, very snappy. It’s got excellent processing power. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto works really well. And the permanent climate panel makes life fairly easy. And then we’ve got an 11.9 in digital cockpit in front of us, which is actually less customizable than Audi’s used to be in the past, which is a bit of a shame. Steering wheel feels good. flat top and bottom. Potentially not necessary on a non-S car, but some people will like that. Perforated leather, paddle shifters, which work for the regen in EV mode, or the gears when you’re running the petrol engine, which is kind of cool. And although we do have these sort of illuminated shortcut keys, they are at least quite clicky in that sort of traditional Audi sense, which is good. One excellent thing though is the seat comfort. We’ve got standard sport seats on the hybrid. While the leather quality is kind of not the last word in plushness, they really hold you in. Very supportive and comfortable over multiple hours in the car. One option I think you’d have to carefully consider is this $5,000 electrochromic roof. So, if we hit this button, the translucent panels go away and it becomes a see-through glass roof, but you can’t open it. Obviously, this is very heavy, so I’d probably skip it in a hot country like Australia, but some people will find that very cool. The other key option in this car is the premium package, which adds some extra ambient lighting, but most importantly, a very high quality Bang and Olafson stereo. So, I’d probably tick that. $2,000 also buys you this extra passenger display. And unfortunately, if you skip that option, you still get this ugly piece of piano black here rather than metal or wood trim or something like that. Bit of a shame. Technology for techny’s sake. So, you can kind of hear my mix feedback in here. The fundamentals are good like the quality and the seat comfort. Audi just needs to carefully think about how it wants to do cabin technology in future. Well, that’s the front. Let’s have a look at the back. There’s still not many fully electric station wagons available on the market here in Australia. I mean, that is a niche part of the industry already. So, the fact that Audi has seen fit to introduce a plug-in hybrid version of the A5 wagon and at no extra cost to the regular turbo petrol version is quite compelling to me because I think the kind of people that are already interested in something like an Audi sport wagon instead of an SUV are probably going to be kind of interested in some of the technological edge that a hybrid of this kind can bring. It’s also quite impressive that even though the A5 plug-in hybrid has just shy of 21 kW hours of usable battery space that it hasn’t actually affected the height of the floor, which is often a problem with fully electric passenger cars cuz there’s just nowhere for that big battery to go. Instead, the battery in the A5 hybrid kind of sits between the back seat base and the boot, as we’ll see when we go backward. And that means there’s somewhere for people’s legs to go here in the back. For myself at 6′ or 183 cm, I am really comfortable back here. Head room, I’ve got a couple of inches underneath the affforementioned glass roof. Leg room’s good. There’s even a little bit of room for my toes. Although, this transmission tunnel here is absolutely enormous. The all drive system in this car is mechanical rather than sort of like a dual motor situation like some hybrids we’re starting to see. So, this is really a car where four adults will be comfortable in it rather than five. You do get air vents, however. really fast USBC ports in this car up to 100 watts depending on the port. Some of them are 60 watts, so you can do things like charge laptops in the A5 without too much of a problem. We do get a flip down console here with just a couple of cup holders. Nice to have. And what has to be pointed out is that some of the secondary trims in this car, like the things on top of the door, are much nicer than in some rivals. It’s not real leather, but it’s certainly stitched nicely, looks good, very presentable. Moving around the back of the A5 hybrid. Now, I’ve chosen the Avant station wagon version, though you may prefer the sort of regular sedan hatchback. I’m a wagon guy and I really think this new A5 suits the long roof shape. Now, we do have the sort of very much in fashion full width light bar here. And what we also have is Audi’s exterior black package which becomes standard on the plug-in hybrid. Now, I am also more of a silver trim guy, which you can get on the regular A5 models, but the hybrid is black pack only. Small price to pay for the relative convenience of the package. However, now it’s really low, as you know. I’m 183 cm, and you can see where the car comes up to on me, so it’s super slinky and it’s sitting on lowered sport suspension. It’s got a pretty cool profile on the road and also one of the fastest power tailgates I’ve ever seen, which gets up and out of the way quickly and reveals a boot which is a little bit smaller in hybrid form than the regular petrol. Officially, Audi says 361 L, which is like smaller than a Golf, but to my eyes, it’s not that small. Maybe that’s sort of to right here where the window line officially is. There is also not underfloor storage in the hybrid, which is potentially also one of the ways that size is a little bit small. And underneath this standard net, we also have something you can probably jettison from the boot, which is the two included charging cables. Now, cables are pretty expensive, so it’s generous of Audi to throw them in, but most people probably don’t need to drive around with both in the car. You might set up one cable in your garage at home, for instance. And whether or not you need the public type two to type two cable is very debatable in a plug-in hybrid. You can, however, fold the seats down from here in the back, which is always nice to have. Fancy electric cargo cover keeps your things covered when the boot is closed. And the A5 also does have full keyless, so you can just walk away from this car if you prefer, plus a button there to lock it manually if you desire. So, the boot is a touch compromised, but is there a good reason for that? Well, before I let you know about the running cost of this vehicle, I’d like to take a look under the bonnet, because this really shows us the reason why you’d buy the A5 hybrid. Well, here we have one of the Volkswagen Group’s 2 L turbo engines. 185 kW of power. So, you can kind of think of this like a Golf GTI engine, but just turned longitudinal. However, what we also have between the turbo petrol engine and the seven-speed wet clutch dualclutch transmission in this car is an electric motor making another 105 kW of power. There’s also a quattro allwheel drive system. So, there’s a lot going on here with the A5 hybrid. Is it complex? Yes. Is it effective? Well, I’ll let you know when we take it for a drive. However, combined outputs are 270 kW and 500 Nm. There is a lower state of tune plug-in hybrid overseas that makes 220 kW that could come to Australia in future based on our needs and our emissions regulations. But does going plug-in hybrid make sense from a running cost perspective? Let’s find out. This A5 is a plug-in hybrid. If you never charge the battery, it will use around 7.6 L per 100 km on premium petrol as we achieved in our testing. Or you can charge it up overnight from a regular socket or as little as 2 1/2 hours on 11 kW AC power for a very solid 101 km of tested EV range. A 5year service plan costs 3,360, the same as the petrol version, while the warranty for the A5 e-hybrid is 5 years unlimited kilm for the car, while the hybrid battery warranty is 8 years. Budget Direct told us the median annual premium paid between the 1st of November 2024 and the 1st of November 2025 to comprehensively ensure a new Audi A5 was $1,95. Of course, everybody’s situation is different and the premium will vary according to make and model and other things insurers take into account such as your postcode, driving history, who drives the car, where you garage the car, and more. Okay, time to take a drive in the A5 plug-in hybrid, which like most hybrids, typically starts in electric mode. And that’s because the A5’s battery management system really tries to keep about 5% of battery power available all the time. So, when you run the battery all the way down, which we now know, you know, will give you about 100ks of electric driving in my testing, and I’m probably not the most frugal driver out there. At 5%, the engine will kick on. After that point, the engine sort of cycles on and off depending on the scenario, using up little bits of electric power here and there to help supplement the engine’s power and regen as much as possible. And that’s one of the reasons why the petrol engine is reasonably efficient. not a standout, probably not as efficient as some like Chinese PHEVs, but the underlying powertrain is quite a bit more appealing than what you get in a lot of those Chinese electric cars. So, even though the A5 is much more expensive than the cheapest PHEVs on the market, there are some reasons for that. partially because the powertrain’s pretty nice, but largely because the ride and handling is excellent and way beyond that of most of the hybrids that we test on this channel. But let’s start with what’s actually going on. Because even though the A5 is, as I said towards the start of this video, a relatively complex vehicle, the nice thing about it is that the components actually come together quite well. What are those components? Well, it starts with the engine. 2 L turbo petrol 4-cylinder engine. This is a motor that has been going around 20 years in the Volkswagen group with lots of little updates along the way. 185 kW of power and 370 new m of torque. They’re pretty good outputs in their own right. That’s the kind of thing we would have expected from like a mid-range Audi A4 in the previous generation. That’s the underlying combustion part of the hybrid system. Then just behind the petrol engine is an electric motor with another 105 kW of power and 350 new m of torque. So again, a reasonably powerful system in its own right. After that comes the seven-speed wet clutch dualclutch automatic transmission in the A5. And after that comes the quattro allhe drive system which is slightly rear biased but which can shuffle torque front to rear depending on the slip situation. So, you’ve got four relatively complicated things going on. But more than most hybrids that I’ve tested in my sort of 12 or 13 year career, Audi and I guess the broader Volkswagen group has managed to make these hybrid bits and bobs work together very harmoniously. Partially that’s because the refinement of the petrol engine is superb. You’re really hardressed to tell when the petrol cuts in and especially when it cuts out. It’s quiet, refined, and very low on vibration and harshness for a four-cylinder unit. So, only when you’re giving it a real rev like that, can you sort of hear something, but even then, it’s very much hushed. And I think that’s appropriate because when you’re driving the A5 hybrid in EV mode, which you know, if you’re buying this car and you’ve got a strategy to charge it probably at home, maybe at the office, you’re going to be in EV mode quite a lot. That means you probably don’t really want a loud and rotty petrol engine. A colleague of mine on the launch of this car said that he thought the A5 plug-in hybrid was too quiet when you fired up the petrol. And I totally get what he means, but I’m not sure it makes a ton of sense for a car like this to have a really loud and imposing petrol engine when much of the time that engine’s going to be switched off. So, I think, you know, in the absence of like a nice six-cylinder engine or a V8, I’d probably prefer the four-cylinder turbo just be quiet. And that’s exactly what it is in the A5. Now, the nice thing is when you have already run down the battery, it pretty much drives just like an even more refined version of a turbo four-cylinder Audi. More refined because it’s hushed, as I said, but also because the electric motor, you know, keeps a little bit of charge in the battery and therefore is able to give you these sorts of squirts of of power and able to keep the RPMs a little bit lower than they otherwise might be when accelerating. And it sort of glides around in traffic silently a lot of the time. But because that electric motor has 105 kW of power of its own, has a decent amount of torque, when you are driving in EV mode, the A5 hybrid pretty much feels powerful enough that you don’t really need to stab at the throttle and therefore wake up the petrol engine. That being said, when you do need a bit more power, you put your foot down, petrol engine wakes up right away, and you’re off. Lovely, slick combination of the EA 8 Turbo 4 and the seven-speed gearbox. So power-wise, regen braking wise, physical brake wise, the hybrid system works really, really nicely. Then you get onto the ride and handling of the A5, which I think is something a little bit special. Audi’s for a long time have had competent, surgical, precise handling. What they haven’t always had is this really lush ability to combine that precision with quite a bit of driver involvement. What we’ve got here is beautifully resolved ride and handling balance. And I’m actually surprised cuz I was expecting this car to not ride super well. It’s on big alloys and it’s on passive suspension and Audi’s sport tune of that suspension at that rather than a comfort tune. However, it’s clear that a ton of work has gone into tuning the ride of this car in order to make the A5 settled and composed and athletic all at the same time. And that’s a difficult combination to get right and a hallmark of a really good car that wasn’t rushed through development. So, what I mean by that is you’re aware of the road surface and the bumps in the A5, but the suspension typically damps out those bumps beautifully. About the only situation the A5 hybrid could be a little better at is when you come off a speed bumper or traverse an expansion joint. You do feel that the tires are quite low profile and there isn’t a whole lot of rubber there to help soak up the last of the bump. But in terms of soaking up bumps and imperfections and potholes and speed bumps and things like that, the A5 is excellent. Way above average, and it combines that compliance with excellent body control. The A5 resists lean pretty well. There’s there’s a touch of body roll, which is fine because it alleviates the tires and reduces the under steer. Everything feels rigid but not creaky and it feels super able to manage what’s going on and the demands that are being made of the vehicle and the road surface. Then there’s the steering which doesn’t have a ton of feel coming through the rack, but the ratio is intuitive. It’s progressive which means you get more sharpness of turn the more you turn the wheel. The tire grip is excellent and the front axle is actually really zealous. Even though the engine isn’t pushed really far back, it’s a little bit further back than the previous gen and the A5 turns in beautifully. It does have a relatively light petrol engine which definitely helps, but then it adds a whole other layer of interest in that it’s happy to move its rear end. Now, it’s got bit of weight back there because that’s where the plug-in hybrid battery sits. So that would help this effect. But it engages its rear and driving behind a new Gen A5 hybrid, you can see it sitting on its outside rear tire in the bends. It’s it’s really clear. I almost thought it had four-wheel steering. It engages its rear end so much. That being said, on the whole, the ride is a little bit more forgiving than an Audi Sar. So, what we have here is a pretty good blend of dynamic attributes. plenty of power, good steering, engaging, lovely handling, really nice ride quality, and a high level of refinement. So, dynamically, I really have few complaints about the only thing would be that some of the safety technologies are a little overzealous, and I’d quite like to turn down the sensitivity of the forward collision warning, which haven’t worked out how to do quite yet. you can kind of turn it off or on, but maybe there’s a sensitivity buried somewhere. But other than that, we don’t have speed warnings and attention warnings kind of taking over the experience. At least for Australia, Audi has turned that stuff off, so you can actually just enjoy this car’s really lovely, crisp dynamics. Good job, Audi. So, that brings us to the need for a verdict. Right at the top of this video, I asked the question, is the A5 plug-in hybrid the perfect car for the times? At least for those of us that don’t really feel like driving an SUV. And I think the answer to that might be yes. I haven’t felt like this about a car of this kind of price since I drove the BMW 330i Touring of the current generation about 5 years ago. Beautifully sized car, great driving dynamics, and at the time the BMW 3 series was good value. That’s not really the case anymore. Enter the Audi A5 Avant plug-in hybrid. 270 kW of combined power. Good driving dynamics whether you’re in EV mode or using the petrol engine. Firm, sporty compliant ride quality, good size, decent cargo space, comfortable seats, same price as the non-plugin hybrid. In fact, you can get away from an Audi dealership for under 100K in this pretty complete, attractive, good quality vehicle. Yeah, it does have some downsides. The boot is a little bit smaller than the regular petrol version. No cooled seats, for instance. A bit annoying in summer. And that ride might be firmer than some people would prefer in a luxury vehicle like this. But really, this car is exactly what Australia’s new emissions regulations were designed to achieve. What Audi has done is worked out a way to bring a better car with a better powertrain to Australia at a pretty good price to try and push buyers into it to reduce their overall CO2 profile. For me, that’s a positive response to these laws. Of course, keen to know your opinions down below in the comments. While you’re there, hit the notification bell and subscribe if you’d like to see more of our review videos. And as always, thank you for watching Chasing Cars.
The Audi A5 plug-in hybrid is a really appealing car: over 100km electric driving, long petrol range and 270kW of combined power. It feels right for the times.
Chasing Cars founder Tom Baker reviews the 2026 Audi A5 e-hybrid (plug-in hybrid) in Avant station wagon guise. This car combines a 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine, electric motor and AWD for a smooth hybrid experience with long electric and combustion driving range.
Rivals to the A5 PHEV include a range of petrol, hybrid and EV options including the BMW 330i and i4, Mercedes C-Class, Genesis G70, Alfa Romeo Giulia, BYD Seal, Tesla Model 3 and more.
Time codes:
0:00 – About this car
0:27 – Audi A5 price
0:53 – In this video
1:30 – Styling
2:00 – Interior
4:44 – Back seat
6:39 – Rear end
7:15 – Cargo space
8:37 – Tech deep dive
9:46 – Efficiency and range test
10:08 – Servicing and warranty
10:20 – Insurance
10:44 – Hybrid system
13:15 – Refinement
14:40 – Performance
15:47 – Ride quality
17:20 – Handling
18:57 – Safety system tuning
19:26 – Should you buy the A5?
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