Skip to main content

Video: 2015 Audi Q3 -- 2014 Detroit Auto Show

02:40 min
By Cars.com Editors
January 17, 2014

About the video

A hatchback in disguise as a small crossover, the 2015 Audi Q3 offers more passenger room than you might expect.

Transcript

(car hood slamming) (seatbelt clicking) (cheerful guitar music) (tires squealing) Hi I'm Kelsey Mays for Cars.com, and we're here at the 2014 North American international auto show in Detroit, with the car we first heard about nearly three years ago.
The new Audi Q3, a five passenger SUV that slots below the Q5 to compete with cars like the BMW X1, the Mercedes GLA class, and the Buick Encore. Let's see how it stacks up. Styling is pretty similar to the Q3 veil concept shown at the 2012 Detroit auto show. LED daytime running lights up front, an aluminum hood, alloy wheels measure 18 or 19 inches. Still though, not a whole lot of outside the box thinking here in terms of styling. It looks a lot like the Q5 which arrived in 2009, and the Q7 would showed up all the way back in late 2006. Now Audi has been pushing the envelope a lot on its cars, cars like the A7, the A8, very advanced styling. We'd like to see some of that make its way over to the SUVs. Fairly conservative styling on the inside here, there is an optional navigation system with a 7-inch screen here on top of the dash. Material's pretty uniform all the way down the doors, there is some kind of cheaper stuff here down the center stack as you'd expect in an entry level SUV. Pretty high seating position though for an SUV, again it keeps you nice and upright. My legs don't feel like they're up in the air that much, I'm six feet tall. Let's take a look at the backseat, and see how it does back there. Well packaged back seat here. That's where I'd sit to drive, and the seat actually has a nice height off the floor, so my knees aren't up in the air, thanks to nice deep foot wells. Despite the fact that there's a panoramic moon-roof in this car at the auto show, which typically reduces headroom for both rows, I actually have a very good amount of headroom thanks to this kind of sculpted out area up here. Cargo room about 16 cubic feet behind the second row, about 48 cubic feet with those seats folded down, which is a pretty easy process here, car at the auto show again, there's even a center pass through with the 60/40 split folding seat. Down versus the Q5 but about even with the Encore, little less than the X1 from BMW. Mercedes has yet to give us cargo specs on the GLA. Under the hood is a 200 horsepower turbo, two liter four cylinder engine, and it couples with a six speed automatic transmission, and available adaptive suspension pairs with Audi drive select which allows you to vary things like handling and ride control. We don't know yet pricing but it's likely that the Q3 will start somewhere under the Q5's $38,000 starting price, including destination when it goes on sale this fall. (car accelerating)

Featured stories