Amazingly, more than two million Audi Q3s roam the world’s roads, which means it’s an important car for the Four Rings Of Power. Welcome to the new one.
Audi’s third generation of its best-selling small SUV now incorporates the whole puffed-out-cheeks, suspicious-side-eye and massive 'singlegrame' grille of its updated siblings and looks a helluva lot more… ‘purposeful’, as a result. Even if that purpose is just going to the supermarket.
It’s a big step change from the Mk2 Q3, packed with LED lights and better aerodynamics and a better drag coefficient and sloping pillars and ‘blistered’ arches and big wheels and… you get the gist.
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There’s plenty of gist beneath those newly designed flanks, via Audi’s multi-fuel powertrain offering. The entry-level car is a 1.5-litre four-pot petrol car with 148hp, able to shut down cylinders two and three when you’re not on the door handles.
Want more doorhandle action? There’s a 200hp quattro Q3 in the works, and if you want Full Doorhandles then you’ll require the 2.0-liter 261hp quattro car. No word on how fast this one is, but it does get 400Nm and four-wheel-drive, so it’ll probably shift.
Diesel’s still alive, in the shape of a 148hp front-drive TDI, and there’s the obligatory plug-in hybrid that marries a petrol engine with an electric motor and 25.7kWh battery (double the capacity of the outgoing Q3 e-hybrid). Power sits at 268hp—again, more than the old car—and a quoted electric-only range of 129km, which is impressive.
Audi also reckons the new Q3’s ability is now more impressive, with the standard steel suspension setup offering an “improved driving experience”. There’s adaptive suspension of course, and Audi says these dampers “continuously react to the characteristics of the road surface”.
The twin-valve dampers apparently “enable a better and smoother connection of the body to the suspension”, while the spread between ‘comfort’ and ‘sporty’ driving is now more noticeable. You can spec in progressive steering, and there are new ‘balanced’ and ‘offroad plus’ (in the quattro) modes available.
Lots of driver assist is also there, like adaptive cruise, attention and fatigue warnings, traffic, distance and lane assist and so on. Essentially, there’s a lot of sensors keeping an eye on the road, and on you.
The ‘emergency assistant’ even takes over if the driver doesn’t react, piloting the Q3 to the hard shoulder to a complete stop. It’ll even park itself, able to remember up to five parking maneuvers. None of which, one suspects, include ‘across two spaces in the car park’.
Inside? Huge. There’s a massive panoramic display that packs in an 11.9-inch instrument cluster and 12.8-inch central touchscreen running on Android Auto and assisted by AI. It’s curved, too, and is complemented by a head-up display and a new multi-function steering wheel. A few buttons adorn the cabin.
As do lots of storage areas, lighting packs, speakers, and recycled, sustainable material choices—wood, recycled polyester, velour made from old fishing nets, that sort of thing. Cargo space sits at 575 liters seats up, 1,386 liters seats down.
“With a total of more than two million vehicles sold worldwide since the launch of the first generation, the Audi Q3 is one of our best-selling models and had a high status in our product portfolio,” said Audi boss Gernot Döllner.
Certainly looks more high-status than ever before.
More photos of the all-new Audi Q3 2026:
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
