| Pros | Cons |
| ✓ Serious performance (even without the ‘RS’ badge) | ☓ Tons of piano black trim, unless that’s your thing |
| ✓ Upscale interior | ☓ Less practical (and more expensive) than the SQ7 |
| ✓ Sharp, classy styling | ☓ Not a huge price leap to the RS Q8 |
| ✓ Bargain price tag against the Cayenne, Urus |
Audi SQ8 Overview: Should you save $30K and buy this over an RS Q8?
Whether you’re a sports car purist or simply want to fly under the radar a bit, the Lamborghini Urus isn’t necessarily everyone’s bag. And that’s before you even factor in the quarter-million dollar price tag. That’s where Audi’s performance SUVs come in, offering up the heavyweight performance you’re after with a bit more restrained, austere styling and at a more palatable price tag. The 2025 Audi SQ8 is another step on the ladder, and may be the best of the bunch with 500 horsepower on tap (plenty, in other words) and a price tag right around $100,000…at least before you pile on options.
Against its corporate siblings, the Porsche Cayenne GTS Coupe and especially the Lamborghini Urus S, the 2025 Audi SQ8 smacks a pretty decent bargain, even hovering around that six-figure price point. It’s also priced competitively with its Euro-brand rivals like the $98,075 BMW X6 M60i, while offering up two extra cylinders and a 71-horsepower advantage against the $93,300 Mercedes-AMG GLE53 Coupe.
Audi refreshed the Q8 lineup for the 2024 model year, focusing on exterior styling as well as its digital LED lighting front and rear. Being a higher-performance model, the SQ8 takes matters a step further with a different front spoiler and rear diffuser. You also get larger 22-inch wheels by default, though you can upgrade another size and get 23s, like we have here. Another subtle touch with the revamp include the model name and drivetrain on the B-pillar, so you won’t ever forget what you bought as you’re climbing into your 500-horsepower family hauler.
For 2025, an LED interior lighting package that was formerly an option now comes as standard fare. Two new packages join the roster for this year: the $2,000 Carbon Package (carbon mirror caps, door inserts and rear light cover) and the $500 Audi Sport Crimson Red stitch package (and yes, we have both on this particular SQ8). Apart from that, the top-end Prestige trim gets massaging front seats as part of the trim, rather than as a separate package.
Let’s chat about that performance, shall we?
Packing a twin-turbo V8 just like its upmarket RS Q8 sibling, performance is the name of the game for the SQ8. Fortunately, there’s precious little to criticize on that front. Not only is the 500 horsepower a nice round number, but you also get a meaty 568 lb-ft of torque and a 0-60 time of right around 4.0 seconds. It’s seriously potent, and you can rest easy knowing you still have eight glorious cylinders under the hood.
The beautiful thing about that V8 is that, much like the exterior styling, it doesn’t really make itself known unless you hammer the accelerator and open up the appropriately burly sounding exhaust. In fact, one of my favorite little touches lies in the individual drive mode. Not only can you adjust the throttle mapping and steering as you’d expect, but you then come to engine sound, where the option isn’t “Sport” or “Race”, but “Present”. Even though you will want to launch this SUV every chance you get — it’s extremely satisfying to do so — the SQ8 doesn’t always need to shout about how sporty it is.
Speaking of launching the SQ8, brake torquing — applying the gas and the brake for a few seconds — is definitely the better way to get off the line, instead of just stamping on the gas pedal. Do the latter and there’s a hint of lag as the turbos spool up. Once they do, though, you’re hit with this addictive surge as this 5,300-pound SUV accelerates to ticket-worthy speeds (not that you should ever do that, of course).
Thanks to substantial brakes and 285/35-R23 Continental SportContact 6 tires, the Audi SQ8’s braking and handling chops will continue to impress, while the all-wheel drive system offers up tons of grip. Toss it around the corners and there’s pleasantly little body roll, while the day-to-day ride is way more comfortable than you’d expect something with such huge wheels and low-profile rubber to be. It’s not as smooth as a standard Q8, of course, but it’s perfectly reasonable for the extra 165 horsepower.
Fuel economy, if your curious, lands on the more expensive side of the Q8-to-RS Q8 spectrum. The SQ8 notches 15 City / 21 Highway / 17 Combined mpg (1 mpg less than the RS model), so it’s definitely thirsty. That said, if you’re deliberately shopping a twin-turbo V8 SUV with a 0-60 time in the four-second range, mileage is a sacrifice you’re likely willing to make.
The interior is still sharp and tech forward, even if storage space is lacking.
Audi is gradually shifting into a new generation of interior design (take the Q5 and Q3, for example), taking a more angular approach and ditching the former dual-screen multimedia interface. That change hasn’t quite made it to the flagship SUVs yet, so the SQ8 hangs on to the haptic touch controls of the current MMI system. I never have the best time with this setup because you always have to “press” an icon harder than you think you do to get results, and that can be tricky to manage if you’re trying to make adjustments on the move. Whether that’s a dealbreaker for you depends on how much you enjoy this kind of tech, but it’s definitely worth testing out the 10.1-inch upper screen and 8.6-inch lower screen on your test drive.
Touch-sensitive controls aside for the moment, the 2025 Audi SQ8 does come with nice materials and more standard equipment against the standard Q8. The base Premium Plus model still brings in wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support, a Bang & Olufsen Premium 3D sound system, and of course all that screen area, including the 12.3-inch digital cockpit.
Opt for the $106,195 Prestige model (a $7,300 premium over the Premium Plus), and you’ll get Audi’s matrix-design LED headights and OLED taillights, while you get ventilated and massaging front seats, heated rear seats, power rear window shades and a head-up display inside. This trim also brings in adaptive cruise control, lane-deep assist, and soft-close doors.
One weird omission our tester doesn’t have is wireless smartphone charging. You do normally get that as standard with a pad in the center console, but our specific car has that option deleted, with $150 taken off the MSRP.
Overall, the interior of the Audi SQ8 is, like virtually every other Audi, a modern and comfortable place to be. You can brighten up the interior a little bit with Arras Red seats as a no-cost option, so that’s also a nice touch. I’m not a huge fan of the quintessential German black-on-black-on-black interior, so if you feel the same you may want to consider that, or the Audi Sport Crimson Red stitch package also adds in a splash of color.
And speaking of a dark-themed interior, the 2025 Audi SQ8 comes with a whack of piano black trim across the dash and console. Again, it’s down to your personal taste. At this point, though, it’d be nice to have something different, and fortunately Audi is taking such feedback into account by bringing in different dash materials, dialing down the gloss black at least a little bit on the aforementioned Q5/Q3.
On the practicality front, the Audi SQ8 loses practicality points by only being a two-row model with a sloping coupe-ish roofline. The 30.5 cubic feet of cargo volume you get behind the rear seats isn’t horrible, though, so this SUV is still plenty usable as long as you don’t actually need seven seats. If you do, Audi has you covered with the SQ7 as well, so you have options there (the SQ7 is also about $6K less expensive).
Verdict: The 2025 Audi SQ8 is still great fun, but if you’re going to go for it…why not go all the way?
At $100K, the SQ8 comes in as a performance bargain against its stablemates and a lot of other high-performance, high-dollar SUVs in its class. Here’s the thing, though…this Audi SQ8 isn’t $100K. There’s the Prestige package that ups the price by $7,300 like I mentioned, but that’s just the start.
The Daytona Gray Pearl paint, for example? $595. The S Sport package (active roll stabilization/sport rear differential and red brake calipers” is another $6,000. The Bang & Olufsen Advanced sound system with the tweeters that rise out of the dashboard is another $4,900. The Luxury package (dinamica headliner and leather on the dash, upper doors, console and armrests) is $3,700. The 23-inch wheels on summer tires is a $2,500 upgrades; the Carbon package is $2,000; the Black optic package is $1,100; the Audi Sport Crimson Red stitch package is $500; and the dynamic (floating) center rig caps are another $225.
So, all in, this 2025 Audi SQ8 is $130,065 including Audi’s $1,295 destination fee. Do you know what starts at $139,595? The RS Q8 Performance, with 631 horsepower and 627 lb-ft of torque on tap. With only a $9,500-ish price delta between the two, I’d consider leaning toward the extra performance for the money. Go big or go home, right?
It’s worth noting that the RS Q8 route also entails optioning things back up again, like the super swanky B&O system and the Executive package. The RS Q8 does come with the sport rear differential and a couple other features the SQ8 doesn’t get, but once you dive back into the options game the RS is a pricier proposition.
It’s up to you: Do you want the extra features or the extra performance? If you want both, you’ll have to pay far more than the mid-range SQ8 demands. Depending on your tolerance for all the options, the 500-horsepower SQ8 gets you most of the way to a Lamborghini Urus S for nearly one-third the price — and that’s a tough deal to pass up, if you can swing it.
