2023 Audi RS Q8 Review: Will It Dog?

The 2023 Audi RS Q8 is one of those cars that, to a classic performance purist, is almost annoyingly good. It's exceptionally comfortable, feels extremely fast and safe, and does it all while being pretty darn practical. Even our dogs, who aren't huge fans of big speed, were able to nestle in nicely while I sliced up mountain roads. This tier of transportation doesn't come cheap, though.

Welcome to Will It Dog, The Drive's car review series for canine owners. Here we'll look at what an Audi RS Q8 is like to live with if you have dogs and point out any specific aspects that help or hurt its case as a dog taxi. We'll focus on the car's physical attributes when it comes to carrying animals rather than driving dynamics, but provide insights there too.

Our main test dogs Bramble, Indi, and Silas are littermates; half Golden Retriever (dad) and half Australian Shepherd (mom). Bramble's the smallest at 40-odd pounds while her brothers are about 60 pounds apiece. They're energetic animals but comfortable with car rides, harnesses, and travel.

Audi RS Q8 Specs for Dog Owners

While the RS Q8 is a high-performance model and will be the best-driving Q8, the general dimensions and quality comments here should carry over to more modest variants of the Q8 as well.

• Base price (as tested): $122,800 ($140,445)

• Seating capacity (people): 5

• Seating capacity (dogs): 5  medium-size breed, if you’re ambitious

• EPA fuel economy: 13 mpg city | 20 highway | 16 combined

• Observed fuel economy: 19.2 mpg over 523.5 miles

• Cargo volume: 22.5 cu. ft. (behind rear seats)

• Dimensions:

• Rear seat to ceiling height: 35 inches

• Rear seat to ground height: 24 inches

• Door sill to ground height: 18 inches

• Trunk opening to ground height: 30 inches

• Cargo area interior height: 40 inches

• Rear cargo width (main usable area): 44 inches

• Quick take: High-class hot rod and fun for the whole family, turns fuel into noise faster than your dog can fart.

• Will It Dog Score: 8/10

Interior Materials and Layout

This is a large-medium crossover SUV, similar in size to a Mercedes-Benz GLE, Porsche Cayenne, or Volvo XC90. Aggressive exterior angles and slopes make it look a little tight, but the cockpit, passenger area, and cargo bay are quite expansive. The rear window is decently sloped which abbreviates your storage room behind the rear seat a little, but there's still plenty of space for packing.

The interior is set up as two deep bucket seats up front with a tall and broad center console between and a rear bench with supportive seats on the sides. This is a high-performance vehicle designed for passenger comfort at speed, so human occupants will feel a pretty firm grip and dogs will be able to nest easily. Non-RS versions of the Q8 will be slightly less aggressive.

The front seating area is wide and there's plenty of headroom above you. A broadly adjustable driver's seat provides a lot of customization options for your posterior comfort, and the massage function (part of a $1,500 Luxury Package) is the best I've ever experienced from a machine. Every surface you can see and touch is elite—the steering wheel's perforated leather is oddly invigorating, hard surfaces feel like spaceship components.

The special Dinamica headliner (also part of that Package) is gorgeous and seemed to resist dog hair better than Alcantara or felt. The floor carpet, however, is another story. It looks and feels great, but after just one week of driving my dog around, it had pretty much taken on her merle fur coloring. Plan on a lot of vacuuming.

But the leather has real robustness to it that I bet would withstand a lot of dog claws (though of course, I use and recommend a pet-proof seat cover).

Climbing In and Out

Most dogs will be able to leap from the ground up to a Q8's back seat without too much difficulty, and if you need to make the jump even easier you can lower the vehicle slightly with the flick of a switch. Interestingly, the rear door doesn't open super wide, so larger animals might have an easier time entering through the rear hatch. There isn't much of a lip at the bottom of the tailgate, so reasonably limber animals will be able to hop themselves into the cargo area without too much trouble.

Driving With the Dog

The rear seats are far enough back from the front row that our animals couldn't easily get their paws up on the center console. That's a good thing—it's cute to get a nuzzle while you're driving, but you really want your animals secured and stuck in the back seats just like kids or adults even if you're just puttering around.

Between the bucketed back seats and substantial rear legroom areas, our dogs could get calm and curl up easily in this thing.