Car UK – Issue 765 April 2026 – Car UK

Both of Audi Sport’s closest rivals, Mercedes-AMG and BMW M, have launched PHEV performance cars to a mixed reception. The AMG C63 has been largely vilified by the fanbase on at least two fronts: its four-cylinder (rather than V8) engine, and its sometimes synthetic-feeling drivetrain. BMW, with its ultra-heavyweight M5, may have made an impressive performance car but in our experience it can feel too big and too complicated to enjoy as a daily driver.

The new RS5 suffers from a similar problem: a porky kerbweight, with the saloon clocking in at 2335kg, while the Avant adds another 35kg. For reference, that’s around 500kg more than the B9 – a vast increase for a performance car, particularly when the larger, V8- powered RS6 Performance is around 200kg lighter. Looking at rivals, an M3 is around 100kg inside two tonnes depending on your spec, while an AMG C63 is around 2.1 tonnes.

There’s simply no getting around that extra bulk. ‘It is a lot heavier, yes,’ Michl admits, but he assures us ‘you don’t really feel it because it’s so agile.’ He prefers to highlight the positives that electrification bring: it can make a car much more communicative on the road and much more adjustable when you’re close to hitting the dynamic ceiling. ‘The most important thing is for it to feel natural in every [drive] mode, especially if you’re touching the limits,’ he says.

‘It gives you a clear response to how it acts and we wanted to have a mode where you could really feel the electric power.’ There’s a new ‘dynamic torque control’ system applied to the rear axle, which Audi refers to as the ‘invisible maestro’ to the RS5’s dynamics.

Of all Tesla’s bold and controversial innovations (dizzying vertical integration, bagging unwanted factories from legacy makers, and blazing a trail on semi- autonomous tech to name but three), its decision to swerve the traditional franchise dealer system in favour of direct sales, online and through company-owned showrooms, proved particularly controversial at home. And while some more storied, powertrain-agnostic brands are pursuing variations on the direct-to-customer theme, it’s the younger, electric-only brands – Lucid, Rivian, Polestar – that can’t get enough of the bigger margins and greater control the model brings.

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe wants to sell his cars in Europe. The R2, which launches in the US and Canada imminently, has been designed and engineered for success in Europe (which, as Scaringe points out, could at least make life easier by acting like a single entity – ah, yes, apologies…). But while working with dealers would no doubt speed things up, Scaringe is convinced that, in terms of tumult, the 2030s will make the 2020s (which don’t feel like a cakewalk, it must be said) look like a millpond.

And if everything’s about to be thrown up in the air, is now really the time for a car maker to cede control? ‘We could go faster doing that [working with established dealers], but fundamentally we don’t like it as a distribution model,’ explains Scaringe. ‘Let’s put aside the fact that you’re paying someone 15-ish per cent to sell your product, even though on a $50k car that’s a lot of money. The other challenge is that we say “dealers” as if they’re a single entity.

But the reality is you’re going to have multiple dealers, all of which behave slightly differently and make it very hard to evolve as the customer model evolves.’ Rivian was an early proponent of the rethink in electronics referred to as the shift to software-defined – a move away from hundreds of ECUs by different suppliers, communicating in myriad languages via miles of wiring loom, to just a couple of centralised, in-house-developed software stacks. It’s more efficient for a whole bunch of reasons, but it also future-proofs your vehicles.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 445023230ea3d549
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 66,361,033 bytes (63.287 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 133
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 232.75 minutes
• Total Words: 46,551
• Total Characters: 277,083
• Average Words per Page: 350.01
• Average Characters per Page: 2083.33

Most Frequent Words

car (234), it’s (223), one (154), good (144), new (133), like (127), april (116), carmagazine (111), cars (104), now (101), audi (98), drive (87), miles (83), time (76), per (75), buy (74), electric (71), bad (69), range (68), ugly (67), bhp (66), also (65), well (63), get (62), still (61), much (60), way (60), there’s (60), engine (58), kwh (56), i’m (55), rear (55), mph (55), first (54), road (54), performance (53), that’s (52), ferrari (50), design (50), battery (50), feel (49), really (49), look (48), back (47), steering (47), test (46), around (46), feels (45), power (45), great (44), team (44), even (43), driving (43), make (42), need (42), front (42), every (41), best (41), version (40), years (39), interior (37), wheel (37), better (37), long (36), mile (36), says (36), two (36), sec (36), driver (35), bit (35), ride (35), big (35), want (34), rally (34), edition (34), work (34), he’s (34), tested (34), three (33), hybrid (33), control (32), don’t (32), you’re (32), issue (32), track (32), ever (32), world (31), see (31), start (31), renault (31), model (30), less (30), inside (30), gti (30), next (30), minutes (30), efficiency (30), many (29), cent (29), lot (29).

PDF Download