It is quiet, even when the gas engine is on and very smooth. Handling is precise, but the emphasis is more on comfort than sportiness. The interior is beautiful and high quality, as would be expected. The ambient lighting is a very cool feature and you can set it to suit your taste. My limited experience with the driving assistance features is that they work well.

There's no conspicuous "Hybrid" badging on the outside, no neon green highlights, and no outlandish styling to give the PHEV game away. The eagle-eyed may spot that there's not only a fuel tank hatch on one side but a second door on the driver's side for the charging port, but most people will just assume this is a regular Q5.

Like the base Q5, the PHEV is powered by a 248-horsepower, 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder engine. It rides on the same multilink independent suspension as the standard model, though its components are retuned slightly to compensate for the extra weight of the hybrid system. Aside from the presence of two filler doors -- one for gasoline on the passenger side and one for the electric charging port on the driver's -- the PHEV is virtually indistinguishable from its more conventional counterparts.

Plug-in hybrids are at their best when it feels like multiple propulsion technologies are enabling a better vehicle, rather than just hampering each other with complexity; and with some time driving the Q5 plug-in hybrid earlier this month, I can say that's for the most part what this version of the bestselling Q5 delivers. At present, Audi is the only one of the German automakers-outside of its VW Group cousin, Porsche-that's making a genuine effort to establish a clear connection in the interface between its plug-in hybrids and its fully electric models.