Audi Q8 E-Tron vs Subaru BRZ

What's the difference?

Things that have had a name change AFTER they’ve become famous…

Okay… there’s Kanye West’s switch to Ye, Twitter’s rebranding to X and now this – the Audi Q8 e-tron.

As the brand’s first production EV, it used to be known simply as Audi e-tron. But that was confusing, because – Porsche Taycan-based GT and RS sports sedans aside ­– every electrified vehicle that the company has made before and since wears e-tron as a suffix.

Beyond new badging, the Q8 e-tron also brings a facelift and improvements underneath, to better challenge the BMW iX, Jaguar I-Pace and Mercedes EQC and EQE large electric SUVs, among others.

How does the Ingolstadt EV fare? Let’s find out.

Subaru struck gold when it first launched the BRZ in 2011.

It, alongside the related Toyota 86 (now GR86), has been the standard for budget two-door sports cars for 15 years now. Nothing besides the MX-5 convertible is in the same class.

However, buyer’s preferences have changed dramatically over the years and sports cars are at risk of becoming more mundane and vanilla to please the general public. It’s great that Subaru continues to offer the BRZ, importantly with the availability of a manual gearbox. Hallelujah.

Last year Subaru made some slight tweaks to the BRZ, including adding active safety tech and a ‘Sport’ mode to the manual trims, plus a full-size spare wheel on the top-spec tS grade.

Speaking of, we’ve got the BRZ tS manual on test here, so let’s see how it fares in 2026.