The New Audi A7 Sportback, really it looks new!

Car manufacturers tend to want to stick to a design of their car lineup in order for people to be able to distinctly tell their multiple designs apart. Some call it a design methodology and some just get plainly lazy. That was what people used to say about Audi’s design. It came to a point where one would say that the A6 looked exactly like an A4 which is slightly bigger.

Enter the Audi A7 Sportback and my, does it look gorgeous. You can tell that it is distinctively Audi and yet it still looks different from its predecessors. The Audi A7 Sportback is basically a 4-door coupe to compete against the likes of the BMW 6 series Gran Coupe and the Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class models.

The interior of the new Audi A7 Sportback dazzles with its futuristic lounge atmosphere. Its reduced, clean design language is based in a one-of-a-kind balance of tension and coolness. The horizontal lines and sleek instrument panel provide for a feeling of airy spaciousness. The center console is oriented toward the driver, underscoring the Gran Turismo’s sporty character.

The 10.1-inch upper display (in combination with MMI navigation plus) is tilted toward the driver. With its black panel optics and framed in a graphite gray aluminum clasp, it almost disappears into the dashboard when switched off. The body supporting the clasp is itself a geometric sculpture. The display’s user interface appears as soon as the car is opened. In keeping with the interior design, the look is reduced and succinct. All screen content can be quickly registered.

The new Audi A7 Sportback will initially launch with the 3.0 V6 TFSI. The V6 turbo produces 340 hp and 500 Nm. Mating the engine with the rest of the car is a seven-speed S tronic gearbox. The four-door coupe sprints from 0 to 100 km/h in 5.3 seconds and has a top speed of 250 km/h. Additional six- and four-cylinder engines, both gasoline and diesel, will follow shortly after the start of production.

You can activate the Audi AI remote parking pilot and the Audi AI remote garage pilot with just a push of a button. Although the term AI is loosely used here. Audi says that the feature will be made available at some point in 2018. They autonomously manoeuvre the A7 Sportback into and out of a parking space or garage. The driver can get out of the car before launching the function via the myAudi app on their smartphone.

To monitor the whole process, the driver presses and holds the Audi AI button the entire time. The central driver assistance controller (zFAS) merges the data from a sophisticated set of sensors to continually compute an image of the surroundings. Depending on the equipment level, there can be as many as five radar sensors, five cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors and a laser scanner.

Besides the Audi AI systems, the new A7 Sportback features a total of 39 driver assistance systems to make things easier for the driver. They are split up into three packages: the Audi AI parking package (gradual introduction beginning 2018), the City assist package with the new crossing assist, and the Tour assist package.

The tour assist package facilitates a driving style conducive to reducing consumption, and the adaptive driving assistant (ADA), which supplements the adaptive cruise control (ACC) with helpful steering interventions to maintain the lane. All driver assistance systems feature improved control mechanisms.

The new A7 further extends its synthesis of sportiness and comfort. The optional dynamic-all-wheel steering, the new electronic chassis program (ECP) – the central controller for the chassis – and the updated air suspension make it even more agile, nimble and comfortable. The A7 is thus the perfect Gran Turismo: dynamic and agile on twisty country roads, yet comfortable on long highway stretches.