I'm Driving The New Audi RS5 And The Polestar 5 This Week, What Do You Want To Know About Them?
As you'd probably guess, one of the best parts of this job is getting to travel the world to incredible places to drive incredible cars (even going somewhere boring to drive a boring car is still pretty nice). But it's pretty rare for two great events to perfectly line up in a way where one of us can do them back to back. This week, I'm lucky enough to have the stars align — I'm currently in Austria to drive the new Audi RS5, and instead of flying back home to the U.S. on Wednesday, I'm flying to Spain to drive the new Polestar 5.
These two cars aren't exactly competitors, but they're both sedans with a lot of horsepower and technology, plus they both have the number 5 in their names. I'll be driving the RS5 on track and on lots of amazing roads around Austria, while I'll be driving the Polestar from Barcelona to Valencia as part of its Sweden to Morocco road trip. I want to know what questions you've got about these new cars. Which one are you more interested in? What details do you want to know? What aspects do you want me to touch on in the reviews?
What they are
In the German corner we've got the redesigned Audi RS5, which features the model's first plug-in-hybrid powertrain. It uses the old RS5's twin-turbo 2.9-liter V6, now with 503 horsepower, with added thrust from an electric motor inside the transmission with 175 hp and 339 pound-feet of torque. Total output is 630 hp and 608 lb-ft, and a 25.9-kWh battery pack gives it an electric-only range of 54 miles on the European cycle. The RS5 also has cool features like a preloading limited-slip differential and a rear-axle electromechanical torque vectoring system. Audi promises it is extremely good at drifting, which I'll get to test out today.
Hailing from Sweden is the Polestar 5, a large fully electric fastback. I'll be driving both the Dual Motor version, which has 748 hp and 599 lb-ft and a 416-mile range on the WLTP cycle, and the Performance model that ups output to 884 hp and 749 lb-ft, but brings range down to 351 miles. The 5 is built on a supercar-like bonded aluminum platform, and it's got a fabulous design with no rear window.
So, dear readers, please let me know what you want to know about these two new sedans. I'll answer some questions in the comments below, and do my best to answer the rest in my upcoming reviews.