Denza B5 vs Audi RS7

What's the difference?

The Denza B5 Leopard PHEV is an impressive five-seat premium-style 4WD wagon: it’s reasonably nice to drive, it’s comfortable and it’s a capable 4WD and word on the tracks is that a new software update is set to make it even more of an effective off-roader.

It doesn’t offer the level of fuel economy you’d hope for, and there are issues with elements of its driver-assist tech suite – some of which are jarring and over-reactive – but the B5 looks and feels like a premium 4WD and represents decent value for money, especially when cross-shopped against something like a new-generation Prado.

The new-generation RS 7 Sportback heralds the further evolution of this large majestic beast, with more features, a beautifully finished cabin and with more grunt with the looks to match. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better combination of power, dynamics and comfort in the Audi range – apart from in the RS 6 Avant of course.

It’s easy to immediately pick up on the B5’s plethora of design cues: it wears with pride its old-school 4WD influences – not the least of which is its blocky, straight-up-and-down profile – mixed in new-gen looks.

All-round this 4WD wagon might be considered an affectionate homage to the likes of the Toyota Prado (aka 250 Series).

The B5 sports roof rails, a sunroof and 20-inch alloy wheels.

Whatever you see when you look at the B5, at least it’s not generic or boring.

And that non-boring impression continues inside…

The B5’s interior is premium-looking and -feeling and it also features quirky touches, such as the crystal-look buttons including a ruby-red start-stop button, and enough leather-accented surfaces and brushed-metal-type sections to keep you intrigued.

Though the dash may be a confusion of buttons and controls, on- and off-screen, the whole she-bang is superficially impressive.

Case in point: the auto shifter lowers and self-stows away in the centre console when the car is switched off and rises for use when the car is switched on. Neat.

It’s on a par in design terms with rivals, such as the Prado.

The big news is the RS 7 Sportback now comes with five seats. The previous generation car had just two seats in the second row. I'll talk more on practicality below but for now let's examine the new styling.

This RS 7 Sportback has new broad, black mesh grille, flanked by gigantic side air intakes, narrow headlights, and a thin upper air inlet which is a hat tip to early racing Audis.

While that new angrier, more angular and menacing face is a showstopper, everything about the new RS 7 Sportback seems to be accentuated further.

Look at the wheels. The previous generation came with 21-inch rims, now the new normal for the RS 7 are 22-inches – they're huge. Those wheel guards also flare out 20mm more than a regular A7's and the rear haunches have bulked up massively.

Come to the back of the car and the diffuser and bumper have also been beefed up. Nobody sitting behind you in traffic is going to think this is just a regular A7.

Don't expect the RS 7 Sportback's insides to be just as hardcore as its exterior. The cabin is almost identical to a regular A7's. It's a stunning cockpit dominated by a dash which protrudes back towards the passengers and houses the media screen. Anther display for climate is set into the big centre console which divides the driver and co-pilot into almost cocooned cells.

The cabin isn't without its RS touches though – there's the sports seats with honeycomb stitching, fully digital instrument cluster with RS specific meters, the RS steering wheel, the Nappa leather on the dashboard and the doors, the aluminium inlays. The level of fit and finish is up there with the best that I've seen on any production car.

The RS 7 Avant is 5009mm long, 1424mm tall and 1950mm across for a wide planted stance.

The B5’s cabin is plush, spacious, and comfortable.

The driver’s seat is eight-way power adjustable (plus four-way adjustable lumbar support), while the front passenger seat is six-way power adjustable.

As mentioned earlier, all seats are Nappa leather-accented.

The B5’s luxury-style interior, also as mentioned, includes nifty touches, such as crystal-look buttons being the most obvious, and an auto shifter auto that stows away in the centre console when the car is switched off and rises, ready for use, when the car is switched on. 

Elsewhere the dash and centre console is, at first, a confusion of buttons and controls, on-screen and off. But you soon get sort of used to all of it.

The second row is a 60:40 split-fold split and it has a flip-down control console rather than a basic centre armrest with cupholders.

The rear cargo area has four tie-down points and volume is listed as 470L (with the second row up and in use) and 1064 litres with the second row stowed away.

The previous RS 7 Sportback was a four-seater, now it has five seats. That's right, a middle seat has been added to the second row, but, as you'd expect, it's not the best place be in the RS 7 Sportback, straddling the large driveshaft and ducking under the low roof-line.

That fastback profile does mean headroom in the second row is nowhere near as good as the RS 6 Avant's, but legroom is the same and, at 191cm tall, I can just fit behind my driving position with about 10mm to spare.

Up front it's not as spacious as you might think. That stepped dash protrudes into the passenger's space, the door pockets are thin and the centre console storage under the armrest is small.

Sportbacks are more practical sedans thanks the large opening offered by the hatch. The boot's 535-litre cargo capacity is great and only about 30 litres less than what you have in the RS 6 Avant.

For phones there's a wireless charger and two USB ports in the centre console storage box, while back seat passengers have two USB ports and a 12V outlets. There's also directional air vents and dual-zone climate control in the rear, too.

The Audi RS 7 Sportback lists for $224,000, which is exactly $8K more than the RS 6 Avant.

Coming standard are the enormous 22-inch alloy wheels, the matrix LED headlights with laser lights, metallic paint, a panoramic glass sunroof (which is new to the model), privacy glass, head-up display, soft-close doors and red brake calipers.

Inside there's the Bang and Olufsen 16-speaker sound system (that new, too), sat nav, the 12.3-inch virtual instrument cluster, wireless Apple CarPlay (new, as well), wireless charging, full leather upholstery with RS sport front seats that are heated and now come with ventilation as standard, and four-zone climate control.

I've left off all the standard RS mechanical equipment, but I'll cover that in the driving section below.

Is it good value? Well the Mercedes-AMG CLS 53 S is $186,435 but it has way less grunt, the Alpina B5 which I've also road-tested lists for $210,000 and there's the Porsche Panamera 4 Sport Turismo for $236,300.

The B5 has a 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine, a 31.8kWh battery and an electric motor on each axle (front: 200kW/360Nm, rear: 285kW/400Nm) – and that combination all-up produces total outputs of 400kW and 760Nm.

The Leopard has a CVT, low-range 4WD gearing, as well as a front and rear diff lock.

The Denza B5 has 16 selectable drive modes: daily drive modes (Comfort, Eco and Sport), as well as terrain modes (Snow, Sand, Mud, Mountain, Rock, Intelligent, Creep, Wading, Sport+, Custom, Burst, Climbing, Tug-of-War (towing), L Function (low-range 4WD), and Leopard Turn, which is the B5’s equivalent of the Tank Turn, where it brakes the inside rear wheel during tight, low-speed off-road turns, reducing the turning radius, and so enabling the B5 to navigate a particularly tight turn.

The RS 7 may look like a large, well-mannered business class car, but think of it as a thug in a suit because this thing is a monster with a 441kW/800Nm twin-turbo petrol 4.0-litre V8.

That's almost 600 horsepower and the supercar acceleration that goes with it is brutal: we're talking 0-100km/h coming in 3.6 seconds. That also matches the RS 6 Avant and it's a tenth of a second faster than the Audi R8 V10 RWD supercar, (and also the previous-gen RS 7 Sportback Performance) and this is a large, four-door, five-seater.

Compared to the previous generation RS 7 Sportback Performance the power is down by 4kW, but torque is up by a whopping 100Nm. Give me torque over power any day.

Shifting gears is an eight-speed automatic transmission, sending the drive to all four wheels.

The 31.8kWh battery provides up to 100km of electric-only driving and supports 100kW DC fast-charging.

Official combined fuel consumption is 3.9L/100km and the B5 runs on regular unleaded fuel (91).

Official fuel consumption is 10.9L/100km when state of charge is lower than 25 per cent.

On this test, I recorded 10.2L/100km.

The B5 has a 83-litre fuel tank so, going by my fuel figures, you could expect a total driving range of about 900km out of a full tank and a full charge.
 

This is a large, all-wheel drive car with a 600 horsepower V8, but it also has a mild hybrid system in this new generation, which will switch the engine off at let the car coast down hills or at speeds under 22km/h.

Audi says this can save up to 0.8L/100km in real-life driving. That's great news, but consumption is still fairly high with Audi saying that after a combination of open and urban roads the RS 7 Sportback will have used 11.6L/100km.

The B5 Leopard is 4921mm long (with a 2800mm wheelbase), 1970mm wide, 1930mm high. It has a listed kerb weight of 3007kg and a 11.8m turning circle. 

Yep, so it’s not insubstantial. But it doesn’t feel unwieldy to drive.

On road, there’s a lot to like about the B5: it's comfortable, refined and composed and it has such a premium feel about it that it really is a top spot in which to spend a lot of time, on road trips, day-to-day driving or long road trips – it's very impressive.

Denza reckons the B5 is capable of doing the 0-100km/h sprint in 4.8 seconds but, while I did admittedly check out the B5’s impressive acceleration in short bursts, I didn’t try to prove or disprove that 0-100km/h claim.

On dirt tracks the B5’s suspension – double wishbone independent and coil springs – yields a firm and jittery ride over minor irregularities in the track but otherwise it’s mostly controlled

Off-road, the separate body-on-ladder chassis B5 has up its metal sleeve an effective combination of mechanical low-range 4WD on the rear axle, electronic torque vectoring at front, diff locks front and rear, and well-calibrated off-road traction control.

This plug-in hybrid optimises a combination of driver-assist technology – including 16 drive modes with the bulk of those designed for off-road scenarios – and with nicely dialled-in off-road traction control and mechanical diff locks on-board it is formidable in most off-road situations.

In action, all of those modes adjust vehicle systems, throttle, and engine output to give the driver the best chance possible of getting safely through every off-road challenge.

And it does a bloody good job of it. 

The B5 tackled our steep rock-step test with ease there's plenty of torque available and again that off-road traction control system is well calibrated, sharp and precise in its application.

Off-road angles on this vehicle are also on the right side of good and the fact that the Leopard has hydraulic-adjustable suspension to suit each driving mode is also a handy feature because you can maximise those off-road angles – approach, departure and ramp-over – as well as ground clearance.

In fact, you can set ground clearance anywhere between 220mm and 310mm and that means you have greater flexibility in terms of what you can drive, how you can drive, how severe an obstacle you can tackle and how safe you are while doing that.

This plug-in hybrid works through a continuously variable transmission (CVT) and it works well in this vehicle, in this package. It's clever, smooth and seamless in its operation 

Another bonus is the B5’s off-road/360-degree cameras, which actually offer a decent image rather than the muddy, fish-eye view of some other on-board camera systems.

Now for the flaws.

There’s little to no wheel travel; there’s not a lot of stretch to those wheels when the height-adjustable suspension is maxed out at its top point – in Crawl mode – so you are sacrificing that. 

The B5’s tyres (Pirelli Scorpion Elect SUV tyres – 275/55R20) are marketed as “all weather” tyres but they're not suited to four-wheel driving of any great difficulty.

If you’re thinking about using your B5 as an off-road tourer, get rid of the showroom-standard tyres and replace them with more aggressive all-terrains. 

Payload in the Leopard is 490kg (600kg in the standard B5).

In terms of towing capacity: the B5 Leopard is rated to tow 750kg unbraked, and 3000kg braked. GVM is 3497kg, while GCM is 6232kg.

The B5 is a very effective 4WD wagon: smooth and comfortably capable.

There are some issues with the driver-assist tech, but that's mostly limited to its on-road behaviour – it can be intrusive and preemptive in its application – but the driver-assist tech, which relates to off-road performance, is impressive. 

We eagerly await a full-blown software update that will further improve the B5’s off-road efficacy.

I've never met an RS model that hasn't been great to drive – these cars are way more than just tough body kits and big wheels. The engineering which separates the RS 7 Sportback from the A7 makes them more distant cousins than siblings.

As I mentioned before the RS 7 Sportback and RS 6 share more than the same twin-turbo V8, there are also the giant brakes in form of 420mm discs at the front with 10 piston calipers and 370mm discs at the rear.

The optional carbon ceramic brakes are the largest ever to be fitted to a production vehicle at 440mm at the front and 370mm at the rear, saving 34kg in mass over the steel brakes.

Now standard for the first time is Audi's Dynamic Package, which adds dynamic steering (a variable ratio) paired with all-wheel steering, a sport differential, and a 280km/h top speed.

Coming standard is adaptive air suspension and for $2850 you can option the Dynamic Ride Control suspension, which is a hydraulically activated adaptive damper system 

At the Australian launch, Audi supplied two RS 7 Sportbacks: one with the air suspension and the other with not only the Dynamic Ride Control system, but also the RS Dynamic Package Plus which adds the ceramic brakes and increases the top speed to 305km/h – this was the car I started off in.

I'm going to say right away that you don't need ceramic brakes for regular road use. Sure it means you can tell people that you have the biggest brakes in the world and they save you almost 35 kilos in weight, and, yes, they're resistant to fading, but they're expensive to replace and the steel ones are incredibly good.

I also feel the Dynamic Ride Control sports suspension isn't necessary in a car like the RS 7 Sportback. This is a Grand Tourer designed to eat up hundreds of miles at lightspeed in comfort.

So, while I found the first RS 7 Sportback with the big brakes and sports suspension sharper and firmer than the standard car, it didn't seem to fit with this vehicle's intent.

The regular RS 7 Sportback still accelerated with the same brutal force and roared at the scenery flashing past. It still handled through the tight corners superbly with excellent turn in, mind-boggling traction and grip, and excellent body control, but all in far more comfort.

This is the point – we covered hundreds of miles at the Australian launch of the RS 7 Sportback in a range of RS models, and sports suspension can go from great to gruelling on Aussie roads with their coarse-chip bitumen and potholes. The RS 7 Sportback, with its air suspension, not only made driving far more comfortable, but easier, too.

ANCAP tested the A7 in 2018 and gave it the maximum five-star ANCAP rating, however, this rating does not apply to the RS 7 Sportback high performance model.

That said, the RS 7 Sportback is fortified with nearly every piece of advanced safety tech there is in Audi's cupboard. There's AEB which can detect and brake for cyclists and pedestrians at speeds between 5-85km/h and vehicles up to 250km/h; there's rear cross traffic alert and intersection crossing assistance with braking; lane departure warning and corrective steering to keep you in your lane, and blind spot warning.

Not a fan of parking, the RS 7 Sportback can do it by itself, or there's a 360-degree camera that'll help you do it yourself. There's an exit warning system, which will warn you if a vehicle is approaching as you go to get out, too, and if the RS 7 Sportback detects that it will be hit from behind, it will prepare the cabin by tensions the seatbelts and closing the windows, including the sunroof.

Along with all that there are Audi's new Matrix LED headlights with laser lights, rain sensing wipers and adaptive cruise control.

For child seats you'll find three top tether points and two ISOFIX mounts across the second row.

There's no spare wheel – instead, there's a tyre repair kit.

The Denza B5 Leopard PHEV is covered by a six-year/150,000km warranty. 

The B5’s 31.8kWh battery has an eight year/160,000km warranty.

The first service is scheduled at six months/3500km; the rest of the servicing appointments are set for every 12 months/20,000km.

Total cost is $3220 (plus GST) via five-year capped-price servicing.

That puts it on a par with more expensive rivals.

The RS 7 Sportback is covered by Audi's three-year, unlimited kilometre warranty which not only falls behind in duration compared to mainstream brands but also its direct rival Mercedes-Benz which now has five-year, unlimited kilometre coverage. 

Service intervals are every 12 months or 15,000km with a three-year plan costing $2380 and a five-year plan for $3910.