2025 Audi Q7 earns IIHS 2025 TOP SAFETY PICK+ award via updated test with greater emphasis on second-row occupants

The 2025 Audi Q7 has earned a 2025 TOP SAFETY PICK+ award, the highest accolade from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The Q7 earned this distinction by meeting tougher new 2025 criteria focused on rear-passenger safety during the IIHS moderate-overlap front collision test. This change reduced the total number of vehicles currently qualifying for the organization’s coveted safety acknowledgment from this time last year by 32 percent. In addition to its extensive list of standard and available safety-enhancing features, the Audi Q7 adds this top industry acknowledgement to its overall appeal.

IIHS made earning its highest TOP SAFETY PICK+ award more difficult for 2025 by altering the criteria behind its moderate-overlap front test, which simulates a head-on collision in which the test vehicle strikes a vehicle of equal size and weight at 40 mph with 40% of their front widths overlapping. The new test includes an additional dummy better representing smaller occupants positioned in the second row behind the driver, and uses new metrics that focus on the injuries most frequently seen in rear-seat occupants. The Q7 received the top “good” rating in the updated test.

To garner the 2025 TOP SAFETY PICK+ award earned by the Audi Q7, vehicles must also earn “good” ratings in the small overlap front and updated side tests as well as an “acceptable” or “good” rating in the pedestrian front crash prevention evaluation, which gauges performance in both daytime and nighttime conditions. All trims must be equipped with acceptable- or good-rated headlights.

The Audi Q7 offers a full suite of standard and available driver assistance features including:

• In the case of an impending collision, standard Audi pre sense® basic can intervene to help prepare the vehicle for impact. This process includes beginning to close the side windows and panoramic sunroof, and pretensioning the front safety belts.
• Standard Audi pre sense® front uses a camera to monitor the area in front of the vehicle and provides visual and acoustic warnings to help alert the driver to potentially hazardous situations. If necessary, the car can start to apply brakes and is able to bring the vehicle to a full stop within system limits.
• Standard Audi side assist provides blind spot monitoring via LED indicators on the exterior mirror housings at speeds above 9 mph.
• Standard lane-departure warning helps to keep the driver within the driving lane through corrective steering intervention and wheel vibration, at speeds above 37 mph.
• Standard Rear cross-traffic assist (as part of Audi side assist) supports the driver when reversing out of a perpendicular parking space at speeds up to 6 mph. Indicator arrows in the MMI® display can help inform the driver of approaching vehicles and, in critical situations, a warning tone and brake jolt can be applied, prompting the driver to stop the vehicle.
• Available Intersection assist uses sensors to help detect cross traffic when pulling through an intersection and can help intervene via a brief braking to warn the driver of a potential collision.
• Standard Adaptive cruise assist with lane guidance helps accelerate, brake and maintain speed and distance, as well as helps keep the vehicle centered in the driving lane. The system uses radar, camera, and ultrasonic sensors to continuously monitor the environment and help assist with highway driving.
• Available Top view camera system uses front, rear, and side-view cameras that allow the MMI system to stitch the images together to display a simulated 360-degree view of the space around the vehicle for parking and narrow-spaces.

For more details about how the updated moderate overlap front and other required tests are conducted can be found in the “About our tests” section of the IIHS website, at www.iihs.org.