Another day, another piece of the 2020 Audi Q7
puzzle falls into place, as this prototype was spied wearing production
lighting units front and rear, and its new grille. Finally we see what’s going on with the interior design.
Audi actually did perform a full dashboard
swap, removing the old unit and replacing it with the one from the brand new Q8
crossover, which in turn should give the Q7 a fighting chance against
newly-designed rivals such as the latest generation X5 and GLE.
Look inside any luxury crossover and you’ll find an
abundance of touchscreen surfaces, digital gauge clusters, sleek designs and a
wide range of built-in safety and convenience features. This is true for the
BMW X5, Mercedes GLE, Porsche Cayenne, various Land Rover products and quite a
few others.
Falling behind in that department would have been
unacceptable for Audi, which is why they pulled out all the stops for the
facelifted version of the Q7. In fact, the last time a major design change took
place inside a premium SUV was when Mercedes shifted from the ML to the GLE –
and that wasn’t actually a full dashboard swap.
What this all means for the Q7 is that it
gets the automaker’s MMI touch response displays (10.1-inch on top, 8.6-inch
bottom), 12.3-inch virtual cockpit display, head-up display, ambient lighting,
plus features such as MMI navigation plus and the Audi connect data transfer
module with LTE Advanced standard and Wi-Fi hotspot – we imagine.
As for safety, if the Q8 is anything to go by, and
it should, the Q7 will rely on systems such as adaptive cruise assist,
efficiency assist, crossing assist, lane change warning, curb warning and a
360-degree camera. Audi should launch the 2020 Q7 sometime next year, with a range of
petrol, diesel and electrified powertrains.
Cr : Carscoops
