2020 Audi Q5 vs Range Rover Evoque

What's the difference?

The Audi Q5 is a rapid, comfortable, and space-efficient five-seat SUV. It has the safety and standard specification to match it with the big guns in this part of the market, delivered in a handsome, precisely executed package. Better fuel economy and a longer warranty would make a good thing even better.

The D180 might be more expensive than the other cars it's compared to. You can thank Land Rover's weird habit of straddling sizes for that. But it does come with a fair bit of carefully chosen gear. It's mildly annoying you need to tick a few boxes to finish the job (at least the packages aren't too stupidly priced), but I guess you know what you're getting yourself into.

The Evoque is a gorgeous car and one that will keep you feeling good about your purchase every time you look at it. Even with the D180 S, you're getting plenty of the good things the Evoque has to offer. It's also a far more substantial car than any of its German rivals with a far greater breadth of capability.

Audi has honed its design game to a fine point over the last decade, making its cars consistently handsome and instantly recognisable, although borderline uniformity in the treatment of key elements will be perplexing for some.

Angry, angular (in this case LED) headlights, sitting either side of the signature ‘single frame’ grille set the tone, with our test example’s ‘Mythos Black’ metallic finish largely absorbing many characteristic details.

These include long strakes on either side of a broad bonnet that closes over the top of (rather than inside) the front guards, and an arrow straight character line running from the rear of the car along the mid-section to the leading edge of the front doors.

The carefully shaped profiles around the front and side (car designers call it surfacing) create a clean, tightly wrapped look. And the Bavarian maker is currently playing a strong hand on wheel design, the optional ‘5-arm off-road’ rims added to the test car (20-inch, as per standard fit) complementing the Q5’s cool personality.

Current Audi SUV design hallmarks are also present and accounted for at the rear, including sharply tapered LED tail-lights, the hatch door covering virtually the full width of the body, and a substantial spoiler continuing the roofline across the top of the back window.

Inside, the cabin displays simplicity, confidence, and restraint worthy of a Bauhaus case study. The sweeping dashboard combines chiselled angles with neatly curved borders, the only hiccup being the 8.3-inch multimedia screen perched above the central air vents, looking uncomfortably like an afterthought.

The ‘Virtual Cockpit’ configurable instrument display places a 12.3-inch digital screen underneath an unassuming binnacle, and seat decoration matches the exterior with long, uncomplicated lines adding just enough visual interest.

The Evoque is extremely pretty and it's difficult to find a person who disagrees with me. Even other designers are a bit jealous of what Gerry McGovern and his team can get done, this time without the interfering publicity of a Spice Girl.

I think this car is much closer to the design of the LRX Concept that kicked off the whole Evoque phenomenon (and, if you're interested, kick-started the career of Rob Melville, now head of design at McLaren).

The flush surfaces are quite lovely and probably work slightly better here than on the Velar. It just seems to suit this size a bit more. My only complaint is there isn't a three-door version anymore.

It's at its best on big wheels, however. The standard 17s are completely lost in the flared wheelarches, so spend some money on bigger hoops.

The cabin is another triumph. A mix of traditional Range Rover chunkiness and sleek lines, it's a big jump over the old car.

With the Touch Pro Duo it's techy-looking and everything works with everything else as far as graphics go. A consistent look and feel is something you don't notice, but when it isn't done right, it's jarring.

A wheelbase just over 2.8m is in line with the Q5’s mid-size premium SUV competition, the Goldilocks zone for a broad target audience, offering generous room between the axles for decent accommodation with enough left over for useful utility.

The driver and front passenger inhabit a snug environment with a sporty cockpit feel thanks to the dashboard’s angular projection back into the cabin and a broad centre console between the seats. But there’s still more than enough breathing room, and storage is plentiful, including a medium-size lidded box/armrest (with a USB-A port and ‘aux-in’ jack inside), twin cupholders, a slim recess in the console for coins, pens, etc, and a ‘Qi’ wireless charging pad ahead of the gearshift for compatible mobile devices (with a second USB-A input beside it). The glove box is reasonably generous and provides access to a DVD/CD player, two SD (XC) card readers and 10GB flash memory for media storage, while door bins include a recessed section for large bottles.

In the second row, sitting behind the driver’s seat set to my 183cm position, I had plenty of headroom and heaps of legroom, but if you have smaller people in the rear, thanks to the ‘Comfort package’ fitted to our test car, the 40/20/40 split rear seat is able to slide forward (as a whole or in part) to increase boot capacity. Three large adults across the rear will be an uncomfortably tight fit, but two grown-ups with a child or smaller adult in-between will be fine.

There are storage nets on the back of the front seats, two cupholders in the fold-down centre armrest, door pockets (again able to accept large bottles), twin adjustable air vents with climate control, two charge-only USB ports and a 12-volt socket. So, no complaints from back-seaters needing to charge phones or games.

With rear seats upright, maximum cargo volume is 550 litres, which is on par with the BMW X3 and Merc GLC, and more than enough to swallow our three-piece hard suitcase set (35, 68 and 105 litres), or the jumbo size CarsGuide pram.

Fold the back seat flat (via levers in the load space or on the seats themselves) and available space increases to 1550 litres, which is plenty, but around 50 litres less than the BMW and Benz. If load capacity is a key priority you may want to think about the Land Rover Discovery Sport, which tips in with 1698 litres.

There are tie-down points in the cargo floor and a retaining net (with tensioning straps) is standard. Handy, netted storage areas sit behind each rear wheel tub and shopping bag hooks are a practical touch. The standard electric rear tailgate features gesture control (via a sweeping foot action) for hands-free operation.

Maximum towing capacity is 2.0 tonnes for a braked trailer (with 200kg towball weight) and the spare is a collapsible space saver.

The new Evoque feels substantially bigger than the old one. Passenger space is more generous, partly due to a longer wheelbase, so four adults will fit comfortably. A fifth, not so much, but few cars manage that and certainly not in this segment.

The boot is a massive 591 litres, which is unheard of in the compact SUV segment and difficult to find in the next size up, too. The load space is pretty good, with over a metre between the wheelarches, but when you fold the rear seats, they don't go completely flat, which might be a drama.

You get two cupholders front and rear and a good size centre console bin which hides the USB ports. If you plug it in, your phone kind of has to go on the tray under your elbow and, honestly, that's annoying. I really can't work out why it irritates me, but there you have it.

If you do want to take it off-road, the Evoque has 210mm of clearance, a wading depth of 600mm (I've driven one in a river), approach angle of 22.2-degrees, breakover of 20.7 and departure of 30.6. Not startlingly good, but there aren't many cars in this class that can do all that.

The Evoque range is still dizzyingly large, with four trim levels and six engines. My Evoque for the week was the base model S teamed with the second of the three diesels, the D180.

It might be a base model and is often compared to compact SUVs like the BMW X2 or Audi Q3 (it's not that compact), so the $64,640 base price looks a bit stiff.

There is a bit of Range Rover added on to the price, but it's also usefully bigger than its European rivals.

The base price includes 18-inch alloys, LED headlights with auto high beam, electric front seats, leather trim, dual-zone climate control, six-speaker stereo, sat nav, reversing camera, front and rear parking sensors, cruise control, power everything, wireless hotspot and a space saver spare.

It also comes with a massive 10-inch central screen running JLR's 'InControl' software which is light years ahead of where it started.

Fronted by a nice tiled interface, you can connect a phone app to it to tell you all sorts of things about the car and it has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The sat nav is good-looking but still a bit dim.

If anyone buys an Evoque without any options, have they really bought an Evoque? 

Range Rover's local team certainly doesn't think so, with 20-inch wheels ($2120), 14-way heated front seats (also heated rear seats) for $1725, 'Drive Pack' (adaptive cruise, blind spot detection, high-speed AEB, $1340), 'Park Pack' (clear exit detection, rear cross traffic alert, park assist), keyless entry and start ($900), privacy glass ($690), digital dash ($690), 'Touch Pro Duo' (a second screen manages climate control and various functions, $600), 'Smart View' rear mirror ($515), powered tailgate ($480), around view cameras ($410), ambient lighting ($410), digital radio ($400) and paddle shifters ($270).

Some of this stuff really should be standard, like high-speed AEB, keyless entry and start and reverse cross-traffic alert, but there you are.

You can obviously get away with far fewer options, but the Touch Pro Duo, Drive and Park Packs are sensible buys for a family car and if a dealer doesn't throw in DAB for nothing, dob them in to the cops.

All of this took the price to $76,160. So that was going to make it difficult for me to judge whether this "entry level" Evoque was worth the money, but I'll give a it a lash.

The Q5 45 TFSI is powered by the VW Group (EA888) 2.0-litre, four-cylinder, turbo-petrol engine featuring an iron block and alloy head, direct-injection and variable cam/valve timing on the exhaust and intake sides.

Peak power is 180kW, available from 5000-6500rpm, and maximum torque is 370Nm arriving across a wide plateau from 1600-4300rpm.

Drive goes to all four wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch auto transmission and Audi’s ‘quattro’ all-wheel drive system using an electronically-controlled, multi-plate clutch centre differential, and the ‘quattro ultra’ rear diff that (in conjunction with the centre unit) decouples when AWD isn’t needed to reduce mechanical drag and improve fuel efficiency.

The 2.0-litre Ingenium engine is exactly the same size as every engine offered in the Evoque. There are six of them, of course, because why not? The D180 is the second of three turbo-diesels, winding up for 132kW and a walloping 430Nm.

It's a Range Rover, so it has all-wheel drive with an electronic rear differential and a nine-speed automatic directing power to the wheels.

Range Rover reckons it accelerates from 0-100km/h in 9.3 seconds and says it's rated to tow 2000kg.

The chunky little beast weighs 1770kg and has a gross vehicle mass (GVM) rating of 2490kg.

Claimed fuel economy for the combined (ADR 81/02 - urban, extra-urban) cycle is 7.3L/100km, the Q5 45 TFSI emitting 167g/km of CO2 in the process.

Minimum fuel requirement is 95 RON premium unleaded and you’ll need 70 litres of it to fill the tank.

Over roughly 300km of city, suburban and freeway running we recorded an average of 11.4L/100km, which is a solid miss relative to the claim, but a more expected number for a close to 1.8-tonne five-seater.

Even though it's a diesel, the claimed fuel consumption number for such a chunky boy of 5.8L/100km looks a little optimistic. And it was, but just a little.

Our week with the car (during which it was gently driven because I managed to do something unspeakably painful to my back resulting in a genuine fear of even the tiniest bump or lurch) we got 7.4L/100km. Not bad at all.

Audi claims the Q5 45 TFSI will accelerate from 0-100km/h in 6.3sec, which is decidedly snappy for a mid-size, five-seat SUV, and with maximum torque (370Nm) available from just 1600rpm up to 4500rpm mid-range performance is satisfyingly strong.

In ‘normal’ city driving, even in Sport mode, power delivery is close to linear, although a slightly delayed push in the back is the norm when squeezing the right pedal more aggressively.

The seven-speed dual-clutch auto is slick and fuss-free, the standard wheel-mounted paddles delivering rapid and precise manual changes on demand.

Suspension is by multi-links (five) front and rear, and ride comfort, despite standard 20-inch rims, is impressive. Standard rubber is 255/45 Michelin Latitude Sport 3, an SUV-oriented tyre with wet weather performance and low rolling resistance (to help fuel economy) as key priorities. They’re quiet, and in more spirited driving, surprisingly grippy.

Take the long way home and this family focused SUV feels well balanced and predictable. The quattro system shuffles drive between the axles seamlessly, and the ride/handling balance is excellent. Any shift from front- to all-wheel drive is imperceptible.

Steering is electromechanical and remains nicely weighted, with good road feel in the city and on the highway thanks to speed-dependent assistance.

Braking is by sizeable vented discs at the front and solid rotors at the rear. They’re powerful yet refined with an agreeably progressive pedal feel.

The multi-adjustable front seats are grippy, yet comfortable over the long haul, and in line with the current Audi norm, ergonomics are top-shelf.

Up until I drove the D180, I hadn't driven a diesel Evoque, even during the first-generation's lengthy run. The P300 is a belter of a car, but you certainly pay for the privilege.

I can't say I was expecting much in the way of driving enjoyment in the Evoque (which I did drive before injuring myself) but came away quite impressed.

Only two things genuinely annoyed me. The first was the too-light steering. While it's beautifully set up for driving around town and keeping effort to a minimum, it took a while to get used to.

The second thing, which is entirely selfish, is that the Evoque's diesel engine isn't as quick as some of its smaller rivals. But that's pretty much it.

Once you're moving, the slow feeling melts away, because a combination of a now much better nine-speed automatic and that huge torque figure means very swift and/or relaxed progress.

In the old days, the nine-speeder spent a fair amount of time looking for the right gear. It seems right at home in the turbo-diesel, ensuring it stays in that fat torque band.

It's a terrifically competent car to drive, too. Despite its off-road abilities (no, you can't get too carried away, but it'll do more than most), it has a lovely on-road feel. Not too soft, but with a nice flow in the ride and handling either in the city or out on the highway.

The Evoque arrives with six airbags, pedestrian airbag, ABS, stability and traction controls, AEB with pedestrian detection, rollover stability, hill descent control, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, lane keep assist, speed zone recognition and driver fatigue warning.

As mentioned earlier, you can add various safety features through the Drive Pack and Park Pack.

There are two ISOFIX anchors and three top-tether points.

The Range Rover Evoque scored the maximum five-star ANCAP stars in May, 2019.

Audi covers the Q5 with a three year/unlimited km warranty, which is in line with BMW and Merc, but lags the mainstream market where five years/unlimited km is the norm, with Kia and SsangYong at seven years.

That said, body cover runs to three years for paint defects and 12 years for corrosion (perforation).

Recommended service interval is 12 months/15,000km, and ‘Audi Genuine Care Service Plans’ offer capped price servicing options over three years ($1710) and five years ($2720).

Annoyingly, Range Rovers is still stuck with a three-year/100,000km warranty, something I know dealers aren't too happy with.

Mercedes-Benz recently went to five years, so hopefully the rest of the luxury sector follows. In fact, maybe part of the welcome back to life post-Corona could be just such an announcement.

On the flip-side, the servicing regime is really good. Like BMW, it's condition-based and means you will likely only have to return to the dealer once per year.

If you want to pre-pay your servicing, you can do it for five years and it will cost you $1950, or just under $400 per year. Bargain.

A Mercedes GLA will cost you between $1950 and $2400 for just three years, and five years is a lot more at $3500. A BMW X2 or Audi Q3 will cost you roughly $1700 for five years.