2025 Audi A5 and S5 review

Prestige brand deletes an iconic name in favour of a new approach for the future of motoring.

Audi A5 pros and cons

Companies rebrand for all manner of reasons – some perfectly sensible, some inexplicable and some quite bizarre.

Next year the Audi A4 follows in the footsteps of Twitter (now X), Facebook (Meta) and Coca Cola (New Coke then back to Coca Cola) by becoming the Audi A5.

The reason for the change hasn’t been triggered by millions of data points from thousands of customer clinics. Instead, it’s because the German brand has made the decision to allocate even numbers, like the ‘A4’, to its electric cars while reserving odd for combustion and hybrid powered cars.

2025 Audi A5. Photo: Supplied

Although there’s more to the new Audi A5 than just its shiny new badge.

In the flesh it’s stunning in comparison to the forgettable outgoing model.

From its sporty rakish four-door coupe profile, to its flared arches, trick OLED rear lamps, slimline LED lamps and trademark 3D grille. The new A5 is hot where the old car was not.

Better still, it’s beauty is more than skin deep – and we’re not just talking about its pretty wonderful cabin that gets a towering ‘Digital Stage’ that blends an 11.9-inch digital instrument cluster with a huge 14.5-inch touchscreen and a 10.9-inch Ferrari-style passenger screen and runs a slick Google-based operating system.

The A5 is available as a wagon-like Avant. Photo: Supplied

No, more impressive is it's the S5’s all-new MHEV Plus mild-hybrid tech that adds both power while enhancing efficiency as it blends a small lithium-ion battery with not one but two electric motors – one that acts like a starter-generator and another one that lives in its seven-speed dual clutch auto.

In short, you get both an extra boost of power for overtakes, while the system can claw back extra energy under braking, saving you fuel. At low speeds in traffic, or while parking the S5 gets an all-EV mode for short distances.

The system is best demonstrated by the flagship S5 that pumps out a whopping 270kW and 550Nm of torque from its electrified turbo 3.0-litre V6. Combined with Audi’s trademark Quattro all-wheel drive, the new BMW 3 Series-rival rockets from 0-100 in just 4.5 seconds and is smooth, quiet and effortless.

The new A5 looks sharp in the metal. Photo: Supplied

Find yourself on your favourite country road and you’ll unearth something even more remarkable.

For the first time in five generations that span over three decades Audi’s mid-size sedan is suddenly among the very best in its class for its drive and ride.

Where in the past the with A4 used to have a naughty habit of pushing into boring understeer. Now, at the limit, the A5 is completely neutral, like the best performance cars, while the very fastest S5 even feels properly rear-driven, in the very finest Aussie sedan tradition.

Most, of course, will buy the 2.0-litre turbo A5 but even that exudes the same dynamic brilliance and still gets both all-wheel drive and a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, although with only 150kW to play with, its 0-100km/h dash of 7.8sec feels a little off the pace.

In the end, it’s still not enough to put us off as the Audi A5 leaps to the very top of the premium mid-size class and is a proper BMW 3 Series beater for the first time in the history.

A 11.9-inch digital instrument cluster with a huge 14.5-inch touchscreen and a 10.9-inch Ferrari-style passenger screen runs a slick Google-based operating system. 5. Photo: Supplied

Whichever you choose, ride comfort is decent, especially over rough roads, although our cars did have the adaptive dampers that might be optional.

The bad news is the current A5 coupe and convertible aren’t likely to ever be replaced, which is a shame particularly for those sunworshippers out there but, for the rest of us, we will welcome the ramping up of the style quotient of the regular sedan and the drop-dead gorgeous shooting brake lines of the wagon and, don’t forget, – an RS version is coming too.

Pricing remains unknown but we hope when it arrives in early 2025 the Audi A5 will be priced in line with the current BMW 3 Series that kick off at around $80,000 (plus on-roads).

As rebranding goes, it’s safe to say the Audi A5 is a huge success.

Audi A5

PRICE: From about $80,000 plus on-road costs (estimated)

ENGINE: TFSI 150kW – 2.0-litre turbo, 150kW/340Nm, S5 – 3.0-litre turbo V6 mild-hybrid, 270kW/550Nm

WARRANTY/SERVICING: Five years/unlimited km, 12 months/15,000km

SAFETY: Seven airbags, lane-keep assist and adaptive cruise control, park assist, 360-degree camera, driver fatigue detection and both side and exit assist, rear-cross traffic assist

THIRST: 6.6-7.9kWh/100km (WLTP)

CARGO: 442/1299 litres

SPARE: Repair kit

Originally published as 2025 Audi A5 and S5 review