Audi Q5 vs BMW X1

What's the difference?

Ever since returning from the launch of the new Audi Q5 I've been looking at old ones and thinking how lumpy and dumpy they look by comparison. The new Q5 will be an adornment to our roads in styling terms, it's a tour de force of interior design and its engines might well be the last barking gasp of its kind. So it's definitely worth a look if you're in the mid-size SUV space. And you don't want an EV yet.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

This new BMW X1 feels like it's been built by a team of parents because it’s one of the most practical and easy to use small SUVs my family and I have ever lived with and, trust me, they’ve seen a lot of test cars come through the Berry garage.

We loved the roomy interior with high ceilings, the clever storage everywhere from the giant door pockets to the floating centre armrest up front and big boot for our pram.

Entry and exit is easy through the tall and wide doors, something my back was thankful for every time I had to put our baby into her car seat.

Driving is easy, with great visibility and the engine that comes in the xDrive20i M Sport makes this X1 sporty and fun to pilot, too.  

The only drawback is the price, it's a bit expensive but at the same time you are getting a high-quality feeling SUV.

Other than the closely related Porsche Macan, and maybe an Alfa Romeo Stelvio, it's hard to think of a better, smoother looking SUV than this new Audi Q5, with its revised Singleframe grille flanked by vertical air curtains, that look a bit like gills.

Audi claims the Q5 has "perfect proportions", which is bold, but it certainly looks sleek rather than bulky, with a nice silhouette and dynamic rather than Mumsy appeal.

The rear is particularly attractive with a three-dimensional light strip that ties it all neatly together. It's a more refined, sharper look than the Q5 it replaces.

Inside, of course, Audi has either taken its interior to another level of futuristic fabulousness, or put too many bloody screens in, all of which are too big, depending on who you ask. And how old they are. Kids will love it, however.

Interestingly, while every car company ever claims that its cabin has a cockpit feel, focusing on the driver, the Q5 really does. So much so that there's a raised edge in the centre console that quite noticeably cuts the driver off from the passenger. In the other front seat you do feel a bit removed, as if you're meant to leave the driver to it, which might be why you get your own screen to play with.

This current generation of X1 arrived in late 2022 and finally looked more like part of the BMW SUV family with tall and boxy styling rather than the sleek, but raised hatchback it seemed to be before.

My test car had 'M Portimao Blue' metallic paint - a flattering hue that showed off the X1’s lines as you can see in the images.

I like the X1’s oversized grille which suits the angry looking front bumper that comes with the M Sport inclusions, but balanced by pretty headlights.

Inside, the X1 xDrive20i M Sport is modern and minimalist in design. I like the floating centre armrest in between the driver and front passenger and the way it creates a feeling of more space and adds more storage.

The double screens are nice, but we’re seeing this same design and tech now in budget cars such as the Chery Omoda 5 and Haval H6. BMW needs to be even slicker and more stylish if it wants to maintain its edge.  

If you like your SUVs sporty looking then check out the BMW X2, X4 and X6. These are coupe style SUVs (but with four doors).

Audi is talking up the little things with the new Q5, like the fact that there's a much larger storage space under the centre armrest now - and it's true, you can lose your car key in it - plus numerous other storage areas, and an inductive and cooled charging tray so your phone won't get cooking hot and shut off, with 15 watts of power.

In exciting news for screen addicts/children, Audi is also very excited about its uprated USB-C ports, which can charge at up to 60 watts through the two in the front, while the rear passengers also get two more, rated at 100 watts. Which sounds like a lot, Audi says it's enough to run your laptop.

The new Q5 also gets a very useful adjustable rear seat, which can be slid lengthways and tilted, providing either more passenger space and less boot room or vice versa. With the rear seat down you get 1473 litres, but thanks to the new sloping rear design you get slightly less room in the Q5 SUV, with 520 litres behind the second row. The SQ5 gets even less at just 470 litres.

Another handy feature is that the snappy luggage cover can be stowed in a special designed compartment under the boot floor. Clever.

My family found the X1 xDrive20i to be one of the most practical small SUVs we’ve lived with thanks to its spacious interior, clever cabin storage and plenty of convenient features.

I need to point out the door pockets - they’re the biggest I’ve ever seen. They’re more door buckets than pockets and super helpful over the week not just for bottles but for everything else that I needed to dump out of my own pockets and into them.

The floating centre armrest up front looks like an ironing board and has a tonne of storage underneath.

The wireless charging is handy but the holster is a bit un-user friendly in terms of access, but it held the phone tight and stopped it becoming a projectile when driving, which is what you want.

There are power outlets galore, too, proximity unlocking, and a gesture tailgate.

Legroom in the back is excellent and there’s so much headroom throughout. 

The X1’s 540-litre boot capacity is excellent for the class and meant we could fit our baby’s big pram and the seven-year old’s scooter and still have room for the grocery shopping.

In the space of driving this SUV and writing this review the list price of the X1 xDrive20i M Sport has risen from $68,900 to $73,400. 

That price hike was part of an increase across the model range and all grades now cost more, even the entry-level sDrive18i which is now 13K less than the xDrive20i M Sport.

But you’re paying for the more powerful, athletic and only all-wheel drive one in the X1 range. 

You’re also getting loads of standard features in the xDrive20i M Sport. 

There’s the 10.25-inch instrument display with three different styles for your speedo and other gauges, while flowing into that is the 10.7-inch media screen with sat nav, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and digital radio. 

There are LED headlights, plus proximity unlocking, a head-up display, dual-zone climate control, a power tailgate, sports seats (the front ones are heated and power adjustable) and adaptive cruise control.

As the name suggests the xDrive20i M Sport is fitted with BMW M Sport goodies as standard. These include adaptive M Suspension, M leather steering wheel, M roof rails, M headliner and M interior trim. 

My test car also had $8900 worth of options fitted including the sunroof, Harman Kardon stereo, the ‘Vernasca Black’ leather seats and 20-inch M light alloy multi-spoke wheels.

Is it good value? Well, you do get a lot of nice things here but at a $13,000 premium over the entry grade, plus the $3500 price jump in the past few weeks, I’d say the value isn’t great.

If you’re trying to keep the cost down, the sDrive18i is the budget pick. 

Does it seem strange to anyone else that a company so focused on reducing emissions through promoting EVs is still offering diesel engines? The reason, of course, is that so many Europeans still want them, because fuel is so damn expensive there, and yet Audi Australia says it will also offer them here.

That's where the range now starts, with the TDI diesel version coming standard with all-wheel drive, or Quattro, with outputs of 150kW/400Nm. Like every car in the new Q5 range, it uses a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, which is excellent.

Every Q5 also uses MHEV technology to reduce emissions and increase performance, which means it gets a 48-volt electrical system to support its combustion engines. This system means you start up, in most conditions, in silent electric mode, and you can even manoeuvre and park the car using only electricity, most of the time.

The electrical system is connected to a Powertrain Generator which provides additional torque of up to 230Nm, and a mere 18kW of extra power. Every little bit helps I guess.

Basically, it's a mild hybrid, meaning you get a mild amount of help, and the full plug-in hybrid Q5s are coming soon. Later this year.

Stepping up from the diesel you can have a 2.0-litre TFSI four-cylinder petrol engine, with either front or Quattro all-wheel drive and making 150kW/340Nm.

The range-topping all-wheel-drive SQ5 gets a very enjoyable 3.0-litre six-cylinder TFSI petrol engine with 270kW and 550Nm. It feels like more kilowatts, honestly.

The X1 xDrive20i M Sport has a more powerful engine than the grades below it in the range - it’s a 2.0-litre, turbo-petrol, four-cylinder making 150kW and 300Nm.

A seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission does the shifting for you.   

This is also the only all-wheel drive X1 currently in the range.

The MHEV technology is supposed to provide some boost to fuel economy but the figures aren't super exciting. You'll be getting a claimed 5.9 litres per 100km from the 2.0 TDI diesel, or 6.5L/100km from the 2.0 TFSI petrol.

The V6 is going to cost you more at the pump with a claimed figure of 8.1 litres per 100km. You might want to wait for the PHEVs.

BMW says that after a combination of open and urban roads the X1 xDrive20i M Sport will use 7.4L/100km.

In my own testing my driving was mainly city and suburban, which uses quite a lot of fuel. We did dashes to birthday parties, the grocery shopping, school drop offs and all of it in busy traffic.  

I recorded 8.9L/100km, but that’s not overly thirsty considering I was carrying two car seats with children, and all the gear that goes with them. 

A small 45 litre tank means the xDrive 20i M Sport has a range of about 608km, which is on the shorter side.

While the new Q5 might feel classier, techier and generally more expensive and Q7/Q8-like on the inside, it's pulled off an even more impressive feat in the chassis department, which no doubt owes a lot to the entirely new PPC platform, because it feels more like a powerful Q3 to drive than the Q5 of old.

That's not a comment on interior or load space, it's just that it feels smaller and more spritely on the road. It turns in better, holds its line better and resists gentle understeer right up to the point where you wonder whether your co-driver has lost his mind or is trying to kill you both.

Seriously, the SQ5 can properly get up and boogie in Sport mode (Audi says one of the things it's proudest of with the new car is how much more noticeable the range of difference is between the relaxed, or 'Balanced' and 'Comfort', modes and the more aggressive ones) and you really have to be going beyond sensible to find the edge of grip.

The SQ5's V6 also makes the kind of noises that now sound weirdly wonderful in an Audi, when so many of the new offerings are electric. Choose to shift the gears yourself and this can be a properly involving machine, and quite impressive for an SUV.

What separates it from the kid of fun you could have in its cousin, the previous Porsche Macan with petrol power, is the steering. It's not terrible, and it is sharp, but it just lacks a bit in the feel and muscle department. Being generous you'd say it's easy to drive but you just know that if this had an R badge the steering would be so much better, and closer to Porsche and BMW.

The diesel TDI model does not make glorious noises, and the whines and groans it does make - which seem loud by Audi standards, it's usually very good at quietening its diesels down - do not encourage you to shift gears yourself or drive it in a sporty fashion. It is a workhorse variant, with plenty of torque, and for a certain kind of customer who cares not for sportiness or excitement I'm sure it's a fine option.

One thing I did not expect to be doing on an Audi Q5 launch is clambering up and over a rock strewn mountain on properly rutted and rough gravel tracks, but that was an option here so I took the 2.0 TFSI on the optional off-road adventure and I must say I was both surprised and impressed.

The Q5 is not a mountain goat, or a Land Rover, but despite feeling like I was doing the gardening in a shiny suit, I managed to traverse a track that felt too serious and intense for a soft roader, and did so with ease and in comfort. The air suspension raises the Q5 a full 45mm in Off-road mode, so ground clearance was no problem - nor did I encounter any boulders - but the way the Quattro system dealt with the dirty stuff was impressive.

Overall, I can see that this TFSI model is the sweet spot in the range in terms of value and performance, and it really is all the Q5 you could need. It never feels underpowered, unless you've just stepped out of the SQ5, and you get all the benefits of the chassis and handling upgrades.

Personally, though, I'd have the SQ5 just for the rorty V6 noises alone. It feels like something new, but also the end of something wonderful.

Only a week before testing the X1 xDrive20i M Sport I’d been reviewing a BMW 330e and going from the 3 Series to the SUV was like changing my seating position from being in a bathtub to sitting on a bar stool. 

Actually, the X1’s seat is far more comfortable than a stool and the refined quality is what you’d expect from BMW.

But compared to the low slung 330e the visibility and the upright driving angle of the X1 is very different.

It’s something you want in an SUV that puts practicality before performance.

As much as I liked the sporty sedan, as a dad I preferred being able to see better when parking in the X1, and this made life a lot easier.

Easy is a good word to describe what the X1 xDrive20i M Sport is like to drive - from that visibility to the light steering, comfortable ride and that great engine with all-wheel drive.

That 2.0-litre four-cylinder has more than enough grunt to run up the steep hills in my neighbourhood without struggling, the transmission is smooth and the all-wheel drive system adds a bit more reassurance in the wet weather.

All of this makes for an easy, enjoyable drive. 

The X1xDrive20i M Sport like all X1s scored the maximum five-star ANCAP rating in 2022.

A score of 88 per cent was given to child protection and the ANCAP report found that a 10-year old and six-year old in the second row had adequate to good protection in a front offset collision and a side impact. 

For child seats there are two ISOFIX points and three top tether anchor mounts across the second row.

As you would expect from a model that’s hasn’t even been around a year yet, the X1 xDrive20i M Sport has the very latest in advanced safety tech.

There’s AEB which is operational from 5.0km/h to 210km/h and also works at road junctions. There’s lane keeping assistance, blind-spot warning and rear cross-traffic alert. 

There are curtain airbags for front and rear passengers, a centre airbag for the driver and co-pilot along with frontal airbags plus side chest and side pelvis airbags.

All Audis are now covered by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, up from its recent offering of three years, which is better, but could be better still.

There's no news on what servicing arrangements will be because the new Q5 doesn't lob until Q3, but in general the brand will let you prepay your services, required annually, for the first five years, with the regular Q5 currently billed at $3140 and the SQ5 billed at $3170.

The X1 xDrive20i M Sport is covered by BMW’s five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty.

A five-year/80,000km service plan through BMW will cost $2150. You’ll be looking to pay an average of $430 per service every 12 months.