2026 Audi RS5 | PH assessment

The ‘5’ is the result of Audi’s brief flirtation with changing the model names across its range – with odd numbers for internal combustion cars and even numbers for electric cars. They turned that idea around, but not in time to save this model. This is in fact the new RS4, the latest in a sporty compact executive model line that dates back to the RS2 of 1994. There have been highlights along the way.

Whether the new RS5 will be yet another depends on how Audi handles this ‘best of/worst of both worlds’ technology. In some ways, PHEVs make a lot of sense; you get useful range with zero emissions, the peace of mind of quick refueling and the thrill of an engine. On the other hand, by the time you put an engine, a battery and some motors in it, you can end up with a car that, like here, weighs 2.3 tons on the other side.

It’s available as what Audi calls a sedan (basically a rakish hatchback, pictured) or an Avant (estate), which has historically been Britain’s favorite body style. Prices will rise from around €90,000 to €110,000 when deliveries begin in June 2026. And in both body styles, the ‘B10’ RS5 looks considerably angrier than the regular A5, and also bigger than its RS4 predecessor, measuring 4.9 meters long (+114mm), 2.1 meters wide over the mirrors (+77mm) and with a wheelbase of 2.9 meters (also +77mm).

A 2.9-liter V6 engine that, according to Audi Sport, brings a fundamentally new life under the hood, produces 509 hp and 400 Nm in itself. It is complemented by an electric motor mounted in the eight-speed gearbox that produces 176 hp/339 lb⋅ft, for a system total of 639 hp and 590 lb⋅ft. All four wheels are driven by a torque-sensing center differential that can send up to 85 percent of torque to the rear wheels, but what happens when it gets to that point could be more important.

Some sporty Audis (such as the previous RS4) have had a clutch on either side of the rear differential to distribute power left and right. That’s nice, but it can only work with the power it receives. Here there’s an electric motor that can perform ‘e-torque vectoring’, adding braking or acceleration forces to each rear wheel separately. It only develops 5hp/30lb⋅ft on its own, but with a lower gear, Audi says it can apply a torque difference of 1475lb⋅ft across the differential, while responding within 15ms. That’s more responsive than torque vectoring via mechanical braking, and the advantage is that it can drive its own torque to accelerate an outside wheel too, so it’s not just dependent on the throttle. Moreover, it makes active rear steering unnecessary.

There’s more. Most RS5s will be fitted with 21-inch wheels, and if the Performance Pack option is ticked (usually it will be), it will get 440mm front and 420mm rear carbon-ceramic brakes: Audi knows that previous RS models have had fade issues. Tires are 285/30 R21s front and rear, custom Bridgestones or beefier Pirelli P Zero Rs, and on 10-inch-wide front and 10.5-inch-wide rear wheels; wider at the rear for more sidewall stiffness and precision. There are coil springs, passive anti-roll bars and two-valve adaptive dampers with four stiffness modes.

All the RS5’s hardware is there to mitigate what happens if you spec a PHEV with a 22kWh battery mounted under the boot floor, meaning you get a curb weight of 2,355kg (hatchback) or 2,370kg (Avant). There are also other disadvantages; the fuel tank is just 48 liters and the Avant’s boot is just 361 litres, with a solid floor too, so there’s nowhere to hide a charging cable. However, it can still tow up to 1,900 kg. You could see this whole package as a non-virtuous cycle; the opposite of shaving off pounds here and there, allowing you to fit smaller brakes, saving more pounds… and so on. This goes the other way.

The interior is spacious enough and gets a number of black or stitched RS-suitable accents, including two shortcut buttons on the steering wheel for ‘boost’ (maximum 10-second acceleration) and ‘RS’ (driving mode selector). The front seats have decent bolstering and provide a good driving position, with reasonable ergonomics, albeit with too much touchscreen action: Audi’s still new CEO Gernot Döllner wants to undo this and have more buttons, plus rounder steering wheels, and I think he’s undone the weird naming strategy (including that bizarre thing they did with numbering cars by power), so he sounds like a sensible guy.

So to drive it. The V6 is smooth, gets off and shifts gears as well. The nice thing about gearbox engines is that they can step in on all kinds of occasions to smooth things out or help rev the engine quickly. Because the engine fills in torque, the turbos can breathe properly while the electricity picks up the slack. The result is that this is a car with many dynamic characters – from quietly creeping away without disturbing the neighbors, to an overly urgent throttle response when you’re absolutely on it.

The dynamic composition is also broad. The ride is quite good. In the slackest damper mode – Comfort – there’s real absorption on poor road surfaces, without too much evidence that the fat anti-roll bars Audi has specified are causing the car to thump back and forth on the road. And we drove it on some pretty bad roads. In the ultra-rigid RS Sport mode, things are very different.

In medium balanced modes the body control is still very tight as I suppose body weight needs to be determined. But precise pitch control also apparently helps braking distances, by keeping more weight on the rear to ensure the rear discs can do some work. The feel of the by-wire brake is really good – never a moment where I wanted more or less than I got.

The RS5 steers faster than a regular A5, with an overall ratio of 13:1 instead of 15:1, slightly slower straight ahead for stability, and accelerates to the edges of its two-and-a-bit turns between the locks. You also get some road feel. The days of B7 RS4-style interaction and smoothness are, I think, behind us; It may not quite flow like an Alfa Giulia Quadrifoglio, but there’s a lot to like as a road car traveling at moderate speeds. It may be more flexible than a BMW M3 Competition.

But even with all that equipment and caboodle on board, Audi Sport still wants the RS5 to feel agile. In fact, he wants it to be fundamentally upset and show how successful he thinks he’s been, as well as a road trip he completed on a number of laps on a short track plus a slalom and a donut area so we could appreciate just how wild the new RS5 is.

And it’s incredibly mobile. When you ask the car to make a sharp turn, the rear diff motor pulls on an inside wheel to sharpen the car’s cornering line, suppressing any onset of understeer. That means you can either use less steering lock to take the turns you want – or, if you apply more throttle, the system will make the steering wheel with the most grip too fast, in extreme cases pushing it out of line and into a very rear-biased drift. On the right track, if you have room, more throttle instead of takeoff is often your friend.

Weight distribution is about even, with a 49:51 front:rear ratio, so with balanced tire sizes and the diff engine pulling and pushing the rear wheels, the RS5 can be thrown absurdly sideways at the end of a slalom. It will even hold a drift; not quite up to rear-wheel drive standards, like a BMW M3 in drift mode, but the front only wants to straighten it out in extreme cases.

However, the system also works at road speeds. Perhaps you feel it even more, as everything slows down a bit, you feel it switching in and out, making this hefty car feel livelier than it has any right to be. It turns into a corner with a relatively natural feeling, given all that’s going on – even more so than some cars with active rear steering – and on a good deserted road it’s easy to get into a fast, flowing rhythm.

Apparently only a few racing teams have used this e-torque vectoring idea so far; it has never appeared in a road car before. But Audi Sport is so happy with it that it’s going to use it again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other carmakers did the same as an alternative to active rear steering. I have no doubt that this makes a somewhat oversized car considerably more manoeuvrable. Would the oversteered Audi be prettier if it were half a ton lighter? Naturally. But since that is not the case, they have done everything they can and developed a car with a wide range of possibilities – and not a little entertainment.

Engine: 2.9 liters (cc to be determined), V6, petrol, plus electric motor
Transfer: 8-speed automatic, four-wheel drive
Power (hp): 639 (rpm TBD closer to launch)
Torque (lb⋅ft): 590 (rpm TBD closer to launch)
0-100 km/h: 3.6 seconds
Top speed: 300 km/h (competition package)
Weight: 2,355 kg (hatchback), 2,370 kg (estate)
MPG: TBC, approx. 70 mpg
CO2: 87-106 g/km
Price: £90-£110,000 (basic hatch to Performance Pack Avant)