It was confirmed last month that the Audi Q7 would make a return in CKD locally-assembled form, and now it appears that the order books have begun. Audi Centre Glenmarie sales advisor Muhammad Zarul Ashidil shared the news on Facebook (now taken down) ahead of the car’s slated launch in May.
The seven-seater behemoth carries estimated pricing of between RM480,000 and RM530,000 – significantly higher than its also-CKD MLB Evo platform sibling, the Volkswagen Touareg. That car was recently given a massive RM69,300 price cut and now retails starting from RM384,972. The Q7 is, however, much lower than the last time the second-generation model was offered here in its original form, when it retailed at RM599,900.
Assuming that the Audi’s final price is on the lower end of the spectrum (at least with the basic two-year warranty), that would compare favourably against its German rivals – the BMW X5 xDrive50e that starts from RM494,800 and the Mercedes-Benz GLE450 (with a four-year warranty) at RM524,888. The Audi and Mercedes, lest we forget, are the only models in the segment to come with seven seats.
Unlike the Touareg and the (again, CKD) Porsche Cayenne, the Q7 is offered in most markets as a plug-in hybrid. Power comes from the same 3.0 litre turbocharged V6 as those cars, here producing 340 PS (the same as the Touareg) and 500 Nm of torque (identical to the Cayenne). This is paired with an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission and quattro all-wheel drive.
The Q7 received its second facelift last year, gaining a new, sportier front bumper design, optional customisable matrix LED headlights and OLED taillights and a mildly updated interior (the car received an all-new Q8-derived dashboard back in 2019).
By the way, the Chili Red example shown in the video above is not representative of the Malaysian-market model. Some digging revealed that Zarul took these photos during his visit to Audi Centre Perth in Australia earlier this month.
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