Automakers bring their A-game to big luxury sedans, but how much effort is enough to be considered a player among the best of the best? Audi may soon know the answer when the facelifted 2022 A8 and S8 arrive in North America this spring. They’re big, luxurious and fast but the changes are subtle and there isn’t much significant new technology.
Vehicle lifecycles in this high-lux, low-volume crowd tend to run for five to eight years, typically punctuated by a facelift in middle age. BMW will unveil an all-new 7 Series limousine next month and a new Genesis G90 is due late this year. In 2021, Mercedes-Benz unleashed a two-pronged luxo-barge assault with an all-new S-class and equally new all-electric EQS sedan.
The current A8 and S8, introduced in 2017 and sold in America only in long-wheelbase form, are in the middle of their cycle and arrive into this frenzy of activity seeming a little samey. They also still lack some of the tech promised when they were new.
If one version of Audi’s flagship stands out, however, it’s the high-performance S8. The original 1990s S8 become famous as a blindingly fast but subtle gangster getaway car in John Frankenheimer’s 1998 film Ronin and today’s recipe is largely similar. Plus, Mercedes-Benz no longer offers an AMG-badged S-Class, and there are no comparable versions of the G90 or Lexus LS.
Cosmetics R Us
Audi has long favored evolutionary styling over radical change, and that tradition continues here. There’s a new grille design and the side air inlets are now vertical, and the daytime running lights are now at the upper edge of the headlamp. It’s all aimed at lifting the visual “equator” line so it looks taller, no easy feat for a long, low car.
The flagship technology of the European-spec cars is lighting, which is fully digital at both ends. The rear lights are OLEDs, customizable by the driver, while each headlamp boasts a matrix of 1.3 million micro-mirrors of light management and 600 meters of laser-light range. It’s true those lights are optional, but even the standard S8 has a High-Definition Matrix LED setup. Europeans even get Matrix LED reading lights so the driver isn’t dazzled from the inside. In the U.S., we get standard LEDs and that’s that.
Apart from new leather materials, the biggest news inside is that the S8 now offers a three-spoke steering wheel as an option. There are, however, four new exterior colors (Manhattan Gray, Ultra Blue, Firmament Blue and District Green), plus five matt finishes.
The Power Station
For 2022, the S8 engine is the same 4.0-liter, twin-turbocharged V8, with mild-hybrid, 48-Volt assistance at low turbo speeds, attached to the same familiar Quattro all-wheel drive system and Audi’s limited-slip rear differential, both mechanically activated.
The automaker claims mild tuning improvements but the important stats, 563 horsepower, 590 pound-feet of torque and zero to 60 in 3.8 seconds, remain the same.
It may not seem much changed, but this V8’s effortless power is the star of the show. Peak horsepower arrives at 6,000 rpm, with peak torque down low at 2,500, but the car is just strong, everywhere, all the time, without ever feeling strained.
It can also shut down one bank of four cylinders when they’re not needed, helping to lower highway fuel consumption to 21.8mpg, though that’s still quite shy of BMW’s Alpina B7.
Riding on Air
There are multi-link suspension setups at both ends and it rides on air, just like it did before. The unusual part of the Audi S8 setup is that it has electromechanical actuators on top of all four air suspension units. They heed advice about the road imperfections in front of the car from a forward-facing camera, and then they tell the dampers what to do. They’re not just active, but they’re predictive and active.
Mercedes was the first out with this technology with the previous-model S-Class, but where the Benz could only lift the wheel, the S8 can drop it, too. This gives it a huge range of capability, ranging from up to three degrees of leaning in to corners to rising two inches whenever the door handle is pulled, just to make it easier to get in and out.
It also stiffens up the front suspension under braking so it doesn’t pitch the passengers forward and does the opposite under hard acceleration so they’re not thrown back into the seats. It manages a full 1g of cornering acceleration, but it leans into the corner to cut body roll from five degrees to just two, the idea is to raise the car’s lateral acceleration while reducing passengers’ motion.
It has other tricks, too, like rear-wheel steering, an active rear anti-roll bar and the go-faster Audi Sports locking differential on the rear axle, just to give it that rear-drive feel. The wheels are forged 20-inch alloys (though our car was running winter tires) and 10-piston monobloc aluminum calipers clamped the front end’s optional carbon-ceramic discs.
The S8’s is a more purely mechanical driving experience than most of its competitors, but it’s dulled by its woolen steering inputs, perhaps its biggest shortcoming. The wheel is light in weight and lighter in feedback, even feeling a bit synthetic as you get closer and closer to its limits of grip, where physics finally catches up with engineering.
Still, the S8 is insanely competent and has a way to makes frighteningly dramatic situations undramatic. It might not be the last word in driver enjoyment, but it is just about the last word in driver security.
Inside the Audi S8
Like other Audi cabins, the S8’s is a gorgeous office, trimmed carefully, accurately and beautifully. It’s at once taut and sumptuous and high tech, but brimming with a comforting homeliness, with three high-resolution digital screens controlling almost everything in the car.
There’s good and bad in that. It took two presses of the same button to switch the last 2021 S8 into its Dynamic mode. Now it takes four clicks on the multimedia screen. That’s an unnecessarily long time with eyes off the road.
At least there’s both haptic and audible feedback on clicks and it’s easy to go backward, but some things just feel like they’re more intuitive to use with a button, switch or scroller. Even dimming the instrument cluster is another four-click affair.
The rear multimedia screens have had an upgrade, as has the Bang & Olufsen audio and the four-zone climate control system and the rear seats are heated and ventilated, just like those in the front. Despite the acoustic glass, the S8 still leaks in more road noise than its rivals, but the V8 is a noble and quiet companion unless it’s roused.
Whatever Happened to Level 3 Self-Driving?
Remember when Audi launched this generation of A8 in 2017, claimed it was the first car with production-ready Level 3 self-driving technology, and it was just waiting for regulatory approval? Audi doesn’t say that anymore.
In fact, Audi has backtracked quicker than an applicant for its ill-fated Technical Director’s job, and now it says the facelifted A8 won’t have Level 3 because the rules arrived too late in the lifecycle and the real-world test results didn’t gel with the European regulations. Audi itself gave up on Level 3 for the A8 a long time ago, and pulled some of its more expensive sensors out, leaving it with undisputed Level 2 driver assistance.
Audi creatively says it took a step back in driver-assistance claims to (hopefully) take a step forward, but that step forward won’t be with this car. Instead, the S8 uses a laser scanner, a long-range radar and a new LiDar, along with its fleet of sonic sensors, plus stereo cameras in the windscreen. It also has 40 built-in driver-assistance systems, including remote parking, where the car can park itself without a driver in the vehicle.
When and How Much?
The S8 makes roads somehow straighter than they look and the straights shorter too, with the combination of that sweet V8 and the clever suspension conspiring to manipulate topography. That motor hauls, too, surging out of corners with so much torque and effortlessness that there is no such thing as a wrong gear to be in.
This combination of blinding speed in a quiet, subtle wrapper is a thing of wonder, but it’s a matter of personal preference as to whether it rises to be a thing of joy.
Not every potential owner will be concerned about that, but no matter how you want your speed the S8 will be exclusive. 2022 Audi S8s will arrive at dealers this spring priced a bit north of 2021’s $133,245 starting figure.