Is the 2020 Infiniti qx50 the perfect combination of Performance and Luxury?

What's up guys, Christopher here back at you with the Infiniti QX50. Let's take a look. So here we go, we're going to determine if performance and luxury can fit under the same roof. As always guys, before we begin, subscribe to my channel Cars Unlocked. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask me in the comments section below. Feel free, follow me on Instagram at cvanweekend. Let's take a look at the Infiniti. So the model beside me here is the 2020 QX50 Essential Package. It's going to come in at around $45,198 with an MSRP. Right in the middle package here of this crossover market. Very unique engine in this one, which I'm going to get to in a second. We're going to go over the pros and cons, show you the performance and see how this car stacks up in our luxury crossover segment. Let's take a look at the front. Obviously, the Infiniti is known for nice swooping lines. You can see the front swoops all the way to the front. There's a few different lines here, about three different lines. They all flow right over the front headlights. This one being the Essential, you're going to get your full LED daytime running lights, your full LED headlights and your LED fogs down below. It all swoops towards this nice chrome front grille here and our Infiniti symbol is flattened out. That's for your forward emergency braking. There's a lot of safety assistance that you get with this vehicle, including the forward emergency braking. Beautiful chrome that flows all the way to the back along with these swooping lines that I mentioned in the front. LED turning signals on the mirrors, nice chrome window accents, silver roof rails really make the car look a lot like a high-end and luxury here. Chrome accents on the handles and then it's sitting on these 19-inch aluminum alloy rims. Getting the all-wheel drive with your four-wheel vented disc brakes. The chrome continues with our liftgate accent here and then the silver rear bumper. This one obviously all-wheel drive, that's going to add to the performance. You have your parking sensors, you have your backup camera, nothing stands out with the rear, the tail lights, nothing stands out to the open eye here. Very standard on the back but I really like these nice trapezoid style dual exhausts, give it a nice sporty look. When we open up the hood, this powerplant is unlike a lot of the cars that I've seen. It's going to come with a four-cylinder variable compression VC turbocharged engine. That's going to give you about 268 horsepower and 280 pounds-feet of torque, so a ton of performance behind this. It's going to give you about 24 miles per gallon in the city and 31 on the highway. What I find is just it's very, very loud at times, especially in the cold weather driving this thing. Engine can be very, very loud but it does have a ton of pickup. Does this VC turbo engine set it above some of its competitors in its class? I don't think so but you let me know in the comment section below if you've driven a few of the different models. So on the inside of this car is where it really shines here. This is where the luxury comes in. Finally, I see a different key. I'm used to seeing those circular keys, Nissan finish keys. I'm happy to see they changed the key. They didn't really change anything. If you look at it, it's literally the exact same. They just made this one more square, but at least it's something different. Let's take off here. Now this one being the Essential Package, you don't get some of the luxury features you get in the top models like the quilted leather seats, things like that, but you do get a nice comfortable leather seat. You get the reclining rear seats. That's great for the back cabin as well. Little tiny shifter knob right in the center. I like a big shifter knob personally, but you can let me know what you think. This one's nice and small. Very, very easy to shift with the push button start. The wheel seems a little small to me, especially something that has the paddle shifters. I like a big wheel or big paddles, but the wheel is small and the paddle shifters are small. Let's go and take this thing off on the highway here and see how it drives once I buckle up. Nice fit and finish though throughout the inside of the vehicle. The white stitching on the accents, great. This nice dual infotainment system that they added, that's a new feature here that they added from the 19 model, which I really liked. They added to the 2021 Infiniti QX80 as well. With all the cool things, you can do your mapping up top here. All your heated steering wheel, your heating is down below, your driver assistance. This one does come with a handful of safety features, five-star safety rating on this one. It's going to come with things like your forward emergency braking with the pedestrian detection. The blind spot monitoring will come with the intelligent cruise control in the top models. This essential doesn't come with the intelligent cruise control with the stop and go, but it's all done through this large interface here. Dual touchscreen is nice so you can adjust each screen and play around with each screen. Let's put our foot down here and you can really hear that engine. You can hear that loud turbo engine take off. Wow, does this thing go? That thing just took off right away as I put my foot down and I barely touched it. Lots of power, lots of performance behind this. Then when you jump into the cabin, you do have the luxury feel. I like the seats. This one is a nice 10-way adjustable power seat, so very, very comfortable. Your passenger, you also get the six-way adjustable passenger seat, so the passengers can do power adjustments there. Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, all are going to be integrated in this. It's going to come with 16 premium Bose audio sound speakers, so nice and loud speaker system. I can't say too much about the inside. Definitely very, very fast. You can definitely get into trouble. It really takes the turns nice. I don't really know what more I can say here. The fit and finish is phenomenal. You definitely feel the heavy horsepower and the turbo when you put your foot down. As I said before, it is a little loud. You can hear the turbo. It sounds like a turbo engine, but I do really like the power behind it. If you're looking at purchasing this car, it might take some time getting used to these two screens. I noticed looking at this screen, you have to really take your head off the road to look down at this screen, but that's why they have all the information here for display on you here. Once you get used to it, you don't have to take your eyes off the road. As I'm new and I'm learning this vehicle, I found myself looking down a lot at the screen. You can see there's quite a bit of space behind the rear seat, 31 cubic feet behind the rear seat. Then you can fold these 60-40 split seats down just with the levers here. That's going to open up and give you about 60 cubic feet. You almost get double the cubic feet by folding the seat down. It's a nice long trunk. Then there is a little bit of hidden storage below. In conclusion, I'm pretty impressed with the drive of this QX50. It definitely is a solid balance of performance and luxury here. The performance is under the hood. The luxury is when you get into the inside with this nice high-tech and higher-end features. I'd like to see a few things, maybe a semi-autonomous driving. If you're going to pay this much for a vehicle, you would like to get those features, but then you have to go up to the higher models. The fit and finish, the comfort, the space on the inside is phenomenal. The drive is great. I'm curious to know how long these turbos are going to last, the longevity of it, the reliability of it. I'm curious to learn that. It definitely is a one-of-a-kind engine and transmission powertrain system. I do like the balance between luxury and performance. It's a real pleasure to drive. Just to wrap things up here, guys. That's a wrap on your Infiniti QX50. If you have any questions, guys, do not hesitate to ask me in the comment section below. As always, if you like what you see here, subscribe to my channel as I'll be posting more car reviews throughout the upcoming weeks. Don't forget, follow me on Instagram at cbamweekend, and we'll see you in the next video.