2013 Audi S7

The Audi A7 came out in 2011 as a stupendous tech car, featuring an always-on data connection feeding maps from Google Earth into the navigation system. Now the A7 gets the "S" treatment, which in Audi terms means a higher output engine and sport modifications.

In 2013 Audi S7 form, the body style remains the same as the less-ferocious A7. Termed a four-door coupe by Audi, the S7 sedan includes a hatchback instead of a proper trunk, with a roofline running down the back in a gradual, aerodynamic slope.

In the Glacier White Metallic paint of CNET's car, the hatch cover looked like a bunny slope, ready for a crowd of beginning skiers snowplowing awkwardly into each other.

The front is pure Audi, with a big grille running from the leading edge of the hood down to the lower fascia. Audi's signature LED parking strips underline the headlight casings, which showed off a new feature for Audi, optional LED headlights. The lights cast a nicely defined pattern and have something like 10 times the longevity of the standard high-intensity discharge lamps, while using less electricity.

Driving on a foggy night, the S7 automatically adjusted the lights so as to reduce glare, a feature that worked surprisingly well.

Power with little sacrifice
The A7's engine strikes an excellent balance between power and efficiency, but the S7 shows some near miraculous engineering. Although adding two cylinders, a whole liter of displacement, and generating 110 more horsepower than the A7's engine, the S7 only comes up short by 1 mpg in EPA tests.

The 4-liter twin turbo V-8 in the S7 produces 420 horsepower, yet can pull 27 mpg on the highway.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Specifically, Audi fitted the S7 with a twin turbocharged, direct injection, 4-liter V-8, good for 420 horsepower and 406 pound-feet of torque. Mated to its seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, what Audi calls S Tronic, the S7 gets 17 mpg city and 27 mpg highway. That latter number is not only impressive, but appeared achievable in my testing.

Cruising down the freeway, I saw the instantaneous fuel gauge read close to 30 mpg. However, my average ended up at only 19.2 mpg, a result of the S7's Dynamic mode. More on that later.

Despite the big engine and the twin turbos, the S7 managed much more even acceleration in normal driving than the BMW 750Li I reviewed last month, which has a similar engine configuration. That difference is likely due to the S7's Comfort and Auto settings from Audi's Drive Select feature, which detune throttle response, transmission, and a host of other performance components to make the car manageable in day-to-day driving.

As a daily driver, the S7 has a lot to recommend. The cabin treated me with luxury features, from four-zone climate control to heated, power adjustable seats. I particularly like the diamond-pattern leather seat coverings. One strike against it is the plastic tray Audi embeds in the rear bench, effectively making the car a four-seater.

Real satellite navigation
The fold-out LCD in the dashboard shows off the tech star of the S7, Google Earth maps integrated with the navigation system. Although I have seen it repeatedly over the last couple of years in different Audi models, my geek guts still experience a thrill watching the car travel through satellite imagery of my surroundings. Seeing the skyscrapers of downtown San Francisco or the spectacular cliffs of the coast roll by on the S7's screen was just cool.

A recent addition to Audi's navigation system is the incorporation of Street View. When I browsed the map and zoomed in, it brought up a street-level image of the surrounding storefronts. On reaching a programmed destination, the LCD showed a little Street View image of the location on the map.

Street View, integrated with the navigation system, lets you see destinations on the S7's LCD.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

That imagery comes courtesy of a dedicated 3G data connection into the car, something owners will have to pay a monthly fee for after a six-month complimentary period.

Audi also used the data connection in the S7 to enable Google local search, a feature I greatly appreciate, along with apps for weather and fuel prices. However, Audi has not yet worked out a scheme to incorporate popular third-party apps, such as Pandora, Yelp, Twitter, or Facebook.

Behind the vibrant Google Earth imagery, Audi keeps a set of stored maps in the car, more typical graphic representations of the roads in plan and perspective views. Those maps include 3D renderings of buildings in downtown areas.

Fingertip search
Audi's cabin tech interface makes finding destinations with Google local search or entering addresses easier than most. The interface's dial controls a rotary paradigm for alphanumeric inputs, which is tedious to use, but two other entry methods work much better.

The revolutionary pad mounted on the center console let me trace letters with my fingertip, so I could quickly enter street names, cities, and zip codes. Voice command also worked very well, letting me say a street address and city all in a single string to program a destination.

The small touch pad on the console makes alphanumeric entries much easier than using the dial and rotary interface.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Voice command in the S7 was fairly comprehensive, letting me control navigation and place phone calls by name, but it did not let me request specific music from a USB drive or iOS device plugged into the car.

Under route guidance, I liked the instrument cluster display, which showed turn-by-turn graphics and lane guidance. The center LCD shows similar graphics, but I had to dig through the settings to get them to show up.

Audi also seems to have expanded its traffic coverage in the navigation system to cover more surface streets. However, I was less impressed with the car's routing when it sent me onto some of the most congested streets in downtown San Francisco, when there were perfectly good alternate routes that would have been quicker. To be fair, few navigation systems can equal the acquired knowledge of local residents.

For music to soothe the frustrations of driving in heavy traffic, the S7 comes standard with Audi's Bose premium sound system, comprised of a 630-watt amp and 14 speakers. I was not blown away by the sound quality from this system, finding some of the mid-range reproduction a little muddy and the highs too shrill. Serious music lovers should look into the optional Bang & Olufsen audio system, which is pricey but very enjoyable.