New Audi S8 Autobahn review

this is the new audi sas and it's a little bit like an f-35 lightning stealth fighter because it's got plenty of firepower yet it manages to fly under the radar now audi has just updated the s8 and the normal a8 as part of a midlife facelift i'm going to talk you through all the upgrades i'm also going to chuck you through the exterior the interior i'm going to test out the car's practicality and all the usual reviewing stuff such as drive it and launch it see how quick it is from 0 to 60 miles an hour and seeing as i'm in germany i'm going to take this thing on the autobahn and see what kind of top speed i can get out of it because i'm matt watson when you're watching car wow buying a new car then head to car wow and my team will help you find your next car at a fair price car wow your one-stop car buying comparison site let's start this video by talking about the design so as part of the revisions audi has given the car some new tail lights they now feature oled technology and they have different graphics in them depending on which driving mode you're in also the car's approximately sensor at the rear so if another vehicle gets within two meters of it then the rear lights illuminate further now here's a little clip of that happening now i can't show you here because it's just too bright you won't see it now as part of the revisions there's also a redesigned rear bumper you get some chrome trim on it now this being the essay you get s8 badging here and quad tail pipes and the good news is there's no fake exhaust here and you've got these lovely chrome surrounds i like that what i don't like though is this diffuser because that is totally fake i mean it looks rubbish and actually you put your hand underneath it's actually hollow so it's not going to diffuse any air it's actually going to capture it what's that all about moving down the side hardly anything has changed really it doesn't really need to it's a good looking car you do get new alloy wheel designs they start from 18 inches which is too small rising to 21s these are on the 20s and they look pretty nice i think you're going to need at least 20s to feel these wheel arches moving down the side you get some new paint schemes you can nag it this lovely blue on the s8 the s8 also gets satin door mirrors there's some of the paint schemes available as well nine new ones in total including five of which are matte and everyone knows that anything that's called matte is cool you also got some new headlight designs compared to the pre-facelift version and they're a bit higher up and has also made the grille slightly bigger i don't know how they manage that it already takes at the whole front of the car but apparently it is slightly bigger and the design within the grill is different to before and the s8 has its own unique design as well as its s8 badging there as well there's redesigned front bumpers as well compared to the pre-facelift version and this s-line obviously is a bit more aggressive than the standard cars with big events and stuff like that you can also get an s-line version which is like a halfway house between the normal a8 and the more aggressive looking s8 here so prices well the range kicks off at four thousand pounds rising to one hundred and three thousand pounds for this range-topping s8 now if you're thinking about buying or selling your car you need to check out kawaii to make sure you're getting a good price and to do that you can just click on the pop-up button up there for the link in the description below and if you're selling your kites dedicated to actually all you do is just upload some photos brief description and our dealers will bid on your car to make sure you get a good price for it and they'll come to your house take the car away and put the money in your bank account and there'll be no messing around on the price they'll pay you what was originally agreed said easy if you want to do that a later date just simply google wow me car wow and we'll wow yeah here on the inside there are only two changes for this facelifted a8 the first is that instead of using alcantara here and here it's now damika which is another man-made material now it says it's used that because it's lighter but i think it's lighter on its pocket because it's cheaper another change is that the s8 now has a three spoke instead of a four-spoke steering wheel however i can see one two three and four spokes can audi not count they're just saying that is one spoke anyway this is what the steering wheel used to look like so i guess it is different other than that everything is as it was before which is not a bad thing because the inside of the a8 is lovely it looks cool it's minimalist quality is exceptional and you've got this infotainment screen here which is fairly easy to use and you've got apple carplay android auto then you've got your climate controls here not quite so easy to use but it's all okay and you've got a lovely digital driver's display there however the tech on board just doesn't feel quite as futuristic as the tech you can get in the mercedes s class and if you want to see my full index video review of that con or it's crazy tech it'll blow you away click on the pop-out bar up there i'll follow the link in the description below can't fault the audi's comfort though the seats are lovely these are upgraded sports seats look at the s logo embossed in them very nice and yeah you've also got some decent storage here the door bins are big and some storage under here and you've got your wireless charging there you've got your usbc ports there you've got some cup holders here as well all very lovely all very similar to it was before but that is not an issue that's not an issue at all here in the back seats of the a8 there's plenty of room so look good head room good knee room plenty of luxuries like blinds and a control panel you've also got seat controls oh usb charging there usbc and the wireless charging pad plus look check this out oh some cup holders there is some through loading there as well and i love how this goes back look oh it's damped ah so satisfying that is underneath here you have some 12 volt sockets and if you need to you can carry three people in the back at once with this car look though it's not that great because this big transmission tunnel which means you have to go legs are kimbo which isn't very dignified now you can get this car with a rear infotainment package so you can get some removable screens that attach to the front seat backs and you can actually mirror your phone screen onto them so you can just do your work or if you want you can stream netflix or youtube or whatever on there now the seats on this car look at this they have a recline function oh let's get more comfortable oh this is good this is good this is good wait a minute this is not so good because now knee room oh dear this is not as relaxing as i'd hoped still if you want to carry rear passengers a lot say if you're a chauffeur you're going to want the long wheelbase version of this car because it has about that much more rear knee rim in fact you can recline the back seats even more than in this car so you can get into your ideal position actually what's your ideal position i forget that don't pull that just cut that out it's weird now let's check out the boot which is big enough however bmw 7 series big capacity 515 liters mercedes s-class 555 liters still is a nice square shape there's not too much of a lip to lift things over and you'd have this scuff plate here so that you don't scratch your paintwork if you're dragging things out of it and there's various tie down points which feel secure and solid you can get nets and little storage area there some under floor storage here as well and there's your tor repair kit thing is though if you want to carry some big long items you can't actually fold down the rear seats at all that brings up to five or nine things about the new audi a8 this shiny bit of trim on the dash does look cool but it's so reflective that when you're driving along past anything such as buildings or trees then you basically get them projected here on the dash it's almost like you're watching a move and it catches your eye and distracts you when you're trying to concentrate on the road wouldn't it be lovely if before petrol cars are banned you were able to enjoy the full noise of something like this s8 v8 engine but oh no audi stops the phone for instance rev up at the end you're gone yeah soft limiters i hate them in the preface of version of the a8 this control panel which allows you to operate the rear seats the infotainment system all that kind of thing used to be removable a little tablet really cool pressure when it comes out you can operate it in your hand then put it back but now it's fixed they just don't let you do that why not the s8 comes as standard with special predictive suspension so a camera reads the road ahead you can see bombs and the suspension automatically lifts up the wheels when you go over them so the car remains completely flat it doesn't go really cool however you can't get that feature at all on the standard a8 in the uk whereas you can in other markets speaking of which in the uk you can't get the s8 with carbon from it brakes like you can in other markets also you can get a long-wheel-based version of the s8 in china and america but not the uk why is it that in the uk we can't get all of the options and enjoyment from the vehicle huh what what is it about i say is it brexit please forgive us this glove box may seem quite large however this disc drive unit does eat into the space and affects exactly what you can put in there so annoying however it's not all bad here's five cool things about this revised audi a8 you can get the long wheelbase version of the ada8 with an electrically deployable footrest for the rear passenger which also massages your calves and heats your legs now this is a short wheelbase version of the car so it doesn't get that so if i want to experience something similar probably have to do that with the um seat back pocket and then i don't know massage my cast myself and heat my feet yeah it's not quite the same you can get the audi a8 with rear wheel steering which makes it more maneuverable than you'd imagine such a big car to be now it comes as standard on the s8 and the a8 for spring but you can get it optionally on the other models as well now rear wheel steering isn't something you can get on the mercedes s-class in the uk so the mercedes isn't necessarily better is it you've heard of matrix led headlights right well how about matrix led reading lights well that's exactly what this hey it has here in the back so you've got a selection of leds just up there and you can use this touch pad here to control exactly where they illuminate so you can highlight individual words in your book to make the car easy to get in and out of when you unlock it and go to get in watch it raises upon its suspension there we go and then obviously when you shut the door look you've got soft clothes premium and then go to drive off it automatically lowers again clever you can now get an invisible version of the a8 here it is there i'm going to make it appear look yeah obviously it's augmented reality you can only see it on your phone so you can see the car's new grille there but look i'm going to remove the body work now and you can see this one is the plug-in hybrid because there's the v6 engine there's the gearbox with the motor in front of it the battery pack 14 kilowatt hours there at the very rear of the car gives you an electric alien range of almost 60 kilometers the combined output 462 horsepower so it should be fairly rapid now the suspension you got adaptive air as standard so nice and comfy but you can upgrade to a special system which will actually lift the car off when it approaches a bump so it just glides over them you can see the new aloe wheel designs there but one of my favorite things is the light technology so i'll just explode the headlights there we go 1.4 million mirrors in those headlights and it allows it to project images on the road to guide you how cool is that now let's talk about the engines so as well as the plug-in hybrid you can just get a normal three liter v6 petrol it has less power though 340 horsepower and the economy is only 31 miles per gallon compared to the 156 miles per gallon you're supposed to be able to get from the plug-in hybrid which in reality you'll never get close to now if it's real world economy you actually want for lots of motorway miles you want the three litter diesel so that should be able to do 40 miles per gallon and it's fairly nippy because it's got 286 horsepower but if it's horsepower you're after you need this engine here it's the four liter twin turbo puts out 571 horsepower and 800 newton meters of torque now all a8 have quattro all-wheel drive and an 8-speed automatic gearbox and this s8 benefits further from a rear limited slip differential now that should help you put the power down when you're accelerating out of corners and in a straight line and we'll see just how quick this car is in reality when i launch it in a bit okay let's see what this audi s8 is like on the autobahn so what i'm going to do is actually reset the trip computer there come on reset and then i'm going to floor it come on oh we're taking off now it's de-restricted it's de-restricted up into the point it says it's not such as now it's a hundred bucket on the brakes let's try and find a bit more de-restricted see what i can get out of this thing and what it does the economy when you hoof it oh well this is going on he's gonna put the auto cruise on let the car do its thing steer to keep me in lane give me a safe distance from the car in front and oh what's the point of coming to germany to drive 100 kilometers an hour on the autobahn it's not even that busy this is comfy though and quiet it's helping my economy look it's improving all the time i'm not entirely sure what that means but the way they do liters per 100 kilometers the lower the number the better unlike miles per gallon where the higher number is better look all these guys are speeding look it says 100 there's this like mr scion what's going on frustrating this is oh 130. are you going to switch over signs or have you lost the plot come on say 130 yes and the cruise control has actually readjusted itself and it's now at 1 30. that's clever but it's not what we're here for i didn't fly for two hours to drive at 130 kilometers an hour which is about 80 miles an hour bear with me caller does the auto steer work i'm not allowed to show you you shouldn't be driving with your hands off the wheel so i'll just and i'm still in lane now either the car is doing its thing or i have very magical fingers it's a bit like a ouija board look oh it knows i want to get off look at that wait a minute it's weird right let's see if we can find some faster stretches of autobahn finally here comes a bit of the restricted autobahn just popping up now yes we've got the sign there let's do it goodbye fuel economy hello performance his car he's so smooth and so comfy and so planted at these speeds it's awesome tell you i'm going to enjoy this while i can before cars are electric love the noise come on here's a gap if you can kindly get out of the way my german friend oh the response is good it's amazing how this just picks up it's got all the luxury and all the performance here we go we're going to reach the speed limiter now there we go fit a wall at 260. i know yeah two six three that's basically 264 265 that's the speed limiter way and all the brakes we maxed it out i hit the electronic speed limiter we did what we came to do uh 18.8 liters per 100 kilometers during that session of heavy acceleration and high speed what is that in miles per gallon i have no idea we'll show it on the screen now with a graphic this car isn't just designed for hooning of the autobahn it's gonna be luxurious and relaxing when you're just driving around town this is a great place to try out the suspension so i'm gonna go into comfort mode comfort plus wow yeah beyond comfort and see if i can seek out some imperfections in the road of which there are not many in germany their roads are better than that let's go back the other way steam's nice and light this car's quite maneuverable come on i want to try this special systems oh there's a manhole cover i'm going to just go on the wrong side of the road for a second to try that out oh yeah i hardly feel that here's another one oh let's try oh yeah i'm doing exactly the opposite of what most people do when they're driving but this is all in the name of car testing i'm trying to do it while not knocking down cyclists but oh my gosh the suspension is so good gearbox i don't even know it's got a gearbox it could be an electric car it's so smooth don't notice any changing in gear pure relaxation there's another one gotta do it again without hitting the cyclist sorry car testing oh what's that oh wow right i want to go see that let's turn around let's see what this is like for doing a u-turn sorry everybody all right then just try and do it big long car this right but because this s8 has rear-wheel steering as standard the turning circle is 11.4 meters which is pretty much the same as an audi a3 look at that three-point turn done no problem at all and let's have a look at these now you're gonna see what i want to do u-turn because it's obviously a second-hand car outlet and they're my kind of car oh look porsche goodness 993 oh my wish 964 actually my favorite generation 924 got a 997 turbo nine six eight nine four four like a green nine nine six we have a 996 in green would you have a 996 let me know in the comments below don't be too rude oh is that 928 gotta love the 928. anyway that's enough of this nonsense let's get on with what we really came here for right s8 performance so i'm gonna find a place to launch it howdy says this car do not 6d in 3.8 seconds but what's the reality i'm gonna launch it let's find out here we go oh that's good oh nice gear change 3.59 for the win well there you go that's really impressive now isn't it [Music] so then what's my final verdict on the revised audi a8 should you avoid it should you consider it should you shortlist it or should you just go right ahead and buy it well i reckon you should shortlist the a8 it really is a lovely luxury car and it's especially lovely with this s8 stealthy performance flying under the radar i hope you enjoyed the video but what do you think of my verdict would you rather have this a8 a mercedes s-class or a bw7 series let me know by voting in the ping comment if you want some more videos click on those windows there and if you click on that box there you can go to car wow to sell your car through us adidas will bid on your car to make sure you get a good price for it

Channel: carwow

Views: 1,402,422

Keywords: carwow, mat watson, car review, new car review, car review 2022, audi, audi s8, s8, new audi s8, audi a8, a8, audi a8 review, audi s8 review, new audi s8 2022, new audi a8 2022, audi a8 2022, audi s8 2022, audi s8 review 2022, audi a8 review 2022, luxury saloon, expensive saloon, most expensive saloon, most expensive audi, luxury audi, executive car, best executive car, best luxury car 2022, audi review 2022, best new audi, bmw 7 series, mercedes s-class

Id: x8TYPNmKNBE

Length: 18min 19sec (1099 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 15 2022