Audi Q8 e-tron reliability & safety rating

Safety and reliability have traditionally been Audi strong points and we don't expect that to change with the transition to electric power. Those thinking of making the switch should have little to worry about.

Audi e-tron reliability & problems

As a brand, Audi finished 22nd overall out of 29 in the 2022 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey. That put it ahead of German rival Mercedes, but behind other competitors like BMW, Jaguar, Lexus and Volvo. With one in five Audi owners reporting a problem with their car in the first year of ownership, reliability could be better.

That said, electric cars are generally more reliable than their petrol or diesel-engined counterparts, as with fewer moving parts, there's less to go wrong. Specific data on the Q8 e-tron's reliability isn't available yet, though.

Safety

Like Audi's conventionally powered cars, the Q8 e-tron is packed with all the very latest safety kit – and it received the maximum five-star score when evaluated by the independent safety experts at Euro NCAP, with a 91% rating for adult protection and scores of 85% and 76% respectively for child protection and safety-assistance systems. It’s worth noting that this score was for the pre-facelift e-tron, rather than the newer Q8. Though given how fundamentally similar the cars are, we don’t expect the rating to change once the new car is assessed.

Standard safety equipment for the Q8 e-tron includes cruise control with a speed limiter, Audi pre-sense front (including autonomous emergency braking), plus camera-based traffic sign recognition and a reversing camera. 

Vorsprung cars also get the Tour Pack – with adaptive cruise, plus turn assist and swerve assist, among other things – and the City Assist Pack, which includes cross-traffic alert and other useful kit.