It’s easy to admire what engineers are doing in vehicles today. The models we see on the roads today are lighter yet stronger, faster yet use smaller engines, more efficient and just plain better than ever before. Certainly technology and advancement have helped all of this come to life but it still amazes me every time we see a vehicle that can operate better on less. The Volvo XC90 is a great example of a vehicle that produces a lot of power form a four-cylinder engine that is both turbocharged and supercharged to give the necessary amount of drive, but there is now another we can seriously admire.

Audi has been working toward lighter and faster vehicles for a few years and the company that offers you the best in class interior have made some dramatic improvements when it comes to the engine of its largest SUV. The new 2017 Q7 will be offered with a smaller engine than ever before, but it won’t give anything up to make that happen, except, of course, some unnecessary weight that wasn’t part of what this vehicle needed at all. This will give the Q7 a more agile feeling on the road for you to enjoy the ride.

What this new engine is for the Q7 is a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. This will give the SUV 252 horsepower and 273 lb.-ft. of torque. This sounds like it might be a little underpowered, but when you consider the fact that just changing out the engine gives the SUV a 500 pound weight loss, you see just how much better it can be overall. Not only will the Q7 with this smaller engine be lighter, you can still enjoy a towing capacity of 4,400 pounds to allow you to pull a good sized trailer behind the vehicle.

With this new engine under the hood of the Q7, the vehicle will be faster, lighter and more efficient than the previous model that used the 3.0-liter V6. This new engine is expected to offer a combined fuel mileage of 22 mpg which is a full 22 percent more efficient than the outgoing V6 engine. The transmission that will be used is the Tiptronic eight-speed automatic transmission which is perfect for the ride and will allow you to have a smooth time on the road in this large SUV from Audi. The expected price will be $49,950 to start and the Premium Plus will cost an additional $4,000. The Quattro AWD system will be standard on this vehicle.

I guess, with all this new information for the Audi Q7, the only real question left to be asked is whether or not any other automakers will follow suit. I would expect that other luxury brands may try and do something similar and it wouldn’t be surprising to see mainstream brands follow along as well. The pursuit for more power from smaller engines can result in a fantastic weight savings, giving a serious benefit to those who enjoy these vehicles.