2024 Audi Q8 E-Tron Interior Review: Awash in the luxury of silence

The 2024 Audi Q8 E-Tron is simply one of the nicest, most straightforward luxury EVs you can buy. It’s not a whiz-bang, party-trick powerhouse of tech, but that’s completely fine. Its virtues such as an ultra-quiet cabin, sumptuous materials and lovely tactile surfaces combine to make it a car that I’d love to commute in, run errands with or otherwise just enjoy being inside.

Audi refreshed this model for 2024, going so far as to change its name from E-Tron to Q8 E-Tron. I went on the first drive to check out Euro-spec versions of the new car, and fellow editor James Riswick tried it out as a day-tripper through California. We both found it to be a substantially improved car, though the interesting bit there is that it’s practically the same inside as it was before the refresh. Yet somehow, it’s still one of my favorite interiors out there. 

One big factor to its success is the utter silence in the cabin. Car and Driver measured it at only 64 decibels at 70 mph, which is only two decibels louder than a Rolls-Royce Cullinan. That’s an astounding feat of noise isolation, and that also makes it an astounding feat of luxury. It’s rather easy to be distracted by augmented reality navigation or fancy “Energizing” programs these days, but never count out old-school silence as one of the most important features of any luxury vehicle. And for some comparison, the last Tesla Model Y Car and Driver tested came in at 70 decibels, which may not sound big on paper, but that’s a very noticeable noise level difference in practice.

The old-school luxury wins keep piling up when you go to press the luxuriously damped buttons, twist any of the clicky scroll wheels or press the haptic-touch displays. Audi may have eliminated a whole lot of buttons with its responsive and intuitive stacked screen infotainment setup, but the feedback from the screens and any other touch-haptic control nearby is pure butter. That’s rather in keeping with the way the Q8 E-Tron drives, steers and handles, too. “Smooth” is the operative word here, and there really isn’t a single interaction you can have with the car that doesn’t feel smooth, right down to the funky-but-oh-so-satisfying toggle shifter.

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