Audi Sport’s technical chief says that the new RS5 Coupé is actually faster to 100 km/h than the Ingolstadt automaker’s official claim.
Stephan Reil, head of technical development, told CarAdvice that the second-generation RS5’s listed 0-100 km/h time of 3,9 seconds was “conservative”.
“I’ve been in this job for nearly 20 years, and with all the cars I’ve worked on, the performance numbers we published were conservative. And it’s no different with the latest RS5,” Reil told the Australian publication.
“So, if we say 3,9 seconds, you will measure, maybe, 3,7 if the conditions are fine, probably 3,8, but even under the worst conditions, you’ll do it in 3,9 seconds. But you will not find a 4,0,” he insisted.
“And the reason we are conservative with these numbers is simple. I simply don’t want to hear, when you guys write ‘well, they claim 3,9, but we got 4,0’. I don’t want to read that.”
The latest version of the high-performance, all-wheel-drive coupé employs a 2,9-litre twin-turbo V6 worth 331 kW and 600 N.m. While the peak power figure matches that out of the outgoing, naturally aspirated V8, the maximum torque figure is a whopping 170 N.m up.
“Let me put it this way: the customer buys horsepower, but what he drives is torque. And what’s important is how the engine delivers that torque. Does it come early, does it come with some lag, or does it come the moment you give it some throttle?
“What we have done with the new RS5 is the best we can do right at this time. But, of course, technology gets old quickly, so we will be able to do better once new systems arrive, such as 48-volt systems, which we will be able to fit into cars like this one,” he added.
