The New 2025 Infiniti QX80 Is a $100,000 Ultra-Luxury Huge SUV

This is the new 2025 Infiniti QX80 Autograph, and it has a $115,000 price tag. It's also a huge, full-size luxury SUV meant to rival the Cadillac Escalade and even the Range Rover. And although Infiniti hasn't had a lot of great success lately, this is supposed to show that they can still compete. Today, I'm going to review the QX80 to find out if that's true. I'll show you all of its quirks and features. Today's video is sponsored by Cars and Bids, which is my online car auction website for modern enthusiast cars. So far, Cars and Bids has hosted more than 20,000 auctions of special, cool, exciting cars like this, and this, and this, and this. So, if you're looking to sell your enthusiast car, reach a wide audience at carsandbids.com. All right, time for the quirks and features of the new QX80, and indeed, this is all new, fully redesigned for the 25 model year, and still based on the Nissan Armada, which is sort of the mainstream, non-luxury version of this car. I'll be reviewing the new Armada coming up soon, but for now, let's talk QX80. Starting on the outside, the exterior design, which I have to say, frankly, It frankly is a little bland, to be totally honest. I don't think it's really stand out or particularly exciting or aggressive, but I do think it looks better than the outgoing QX80, which always had... Kind of a beluga whale look to it, especially in white. It was always a little too curvy, and it didn't really have that muscular, edgy look you see in an Escalade or a G-Wagon that made you think they had attitude. It also didn't help that the old QX80 came out back in 2011, so the design was really old. This new one may be bland, but certainly totally different and totally new compared to the outgoing model. And on the outside, there are some rather interesting quirks and features. Let's start with lighting and specifically the light bar in back, which isn't actually a bar, but a series of like little light bricks that goes the entire way across the rear of the car. Certainly a very distinctive look. Up front, also pretty distinctive, coming off the top of the grille where you normally have headlights, those are not your headlights. Those are your running lights when the car is just driving along, and your turn signals when you put on the turn signal. The headlights are actually mounted down here, a little bit lower, which is a little unusual. Some other cars do that, but, well, now this one does too. Probably the most interesting lighting touch up front, though, is the Infiniti badge, and the grille is lit up, so you can brag to everyone. about having an Infiniti, as much of a brag as that is. And speaking of badging, this is the top-of-the-line QX80 Autograph, and it actually says Autograph written in cursive on this panel in back, below the rear window, Autograph on the side. Sort of adds a touch of class, so you know you're looking at the top. model. Another interesting badge directly below that integrated into the taillight is this subtle Infiniti badge, which is kind of a neat little thing if you spot it. Less subtle, however, is the giant Infiniti script on the rear of the car. They don't even have the logo back there. It just has giant spelled out in huge letters, Infiniti. So everybody knows exactly what this is. Name recognition isn't exactly Infiniti's strong suit these days. So they're really trying I'm going to hit you in the face with it in the back of the QX80. And next up, climbing inside the new QX80. And I got to say, I've never been Infiniti's biggest supporter. In fact, I've openly questioned whether they will continue to exist as a brand. But Infiniti, hate or love, I got to admit, this is a really nice interior. Everything in here is top. quality and it looks and feels great everywhere you turn the materials the trim the design the style of this interior everything is fantastic you get this wonderful perforated soft leather on the seats they're very supportive they look great basically everywhere all around you have nice stitching great materials over on the passenger side of the dashboard it lights up when you turn on the car and it says Infiniti with some Calming lines, just so you know exactly where you're sitting. Now, I recognize that this is the top trim model. Like I've said, the Autograph model, sticker price 115 grand. So I would expect it to be this nice inside, but it is this nice inside. Infiniti has risen to the occasion and made a really high quality interior in this car. And of course, there's a lot of interesting quirks and features to talk about. So let's start in the center console. You open up the center console for Storage and it's not just storage. It's a cool box, which you can turn on and keep things chilled. Now, this isn't a refrigerator. It won't completely refrigerate stuff, but it will keep a sandwich cool on a drive home, which is a nice feature to see. Also interesting in here, you have a camera mounted on the ceiling facing the interior. And if you go into the infotainment system, you can look. Using that camera at everybody inside the car, this is a nice feature if you're bringing around your kids or if you're an Uber Black driver and a lot of QX80s end up in limousine service or car service hands, you can record your passengers in case they do crazy stuff. And by the same token, you also have a built-in dash cam that will record what's going on out in front and you can always have it recording while you're driving along in case anybody tries to scam you. Pretty cool idea, and I think more and more cars should come with built-in dash cams. A lot of people add them aftermarket, and it's nice to see them integrated from the factory into a car like this. And on the subject of cameras, the rear view mirror in this car is a camera. You can see right now it's a mirror, but you flip this switch and it becomes a camera. It's showing you images from behind, so you don't have to look all the way through the interior to see what's behind you. That's a great feature. It makes life a lot safer when you're driving along, and I really like it. Another interesting quirk in here, the headrests on the seats. You can see they have speakers on either side. This QX80 has some high-end clips. Audio system you can see that's the name of the company and there's speakers in a lot of different places But these seat headrest speakers are especially cool. They look cool. And of course, they enhance your audio experience And another nice touch in the new QX80 is underneath the large center console. You have some extra storage under here It's a little hidden and out of place But you can put stuff there if you don't want it anywhere else a nice little extra storage compartment Next, we move on to technology, and aside from the mirror screen, there are three large screens in the front of the new QX80. Interestingly, the center lower screen pretty much only does climate control stuff. You change your fan speed, your air temperature, turn on your heated seats, all the climate control stuff is done through this screen, and that's basically all that this screen does. No physical buttons for that stuff, but... You also don't have to go into any special menus in some other screen, because it's all in this screen, and it's basically always there. Now, also in this screen area, you can see your gear selector here. It's just a series of four buttons, P, R, and D. There's no... Column shift, no big old thing, you shift into gear, just four simple buttons, which really frees up a lot of space for other stuff in this interior, like a center cool box. Now, mounted here, you also have a button-marked camera, and you press that, and it pulls up your vehicle camera system instantly, which is really cool to see. You're trying to park into a tight space, and you want to access your camera. You don't have to go into some infotainment menu to find the camera. Instead, you're just driving, push camera, it comes on, and you can see exactly what's going on around you. And you even have a 3D camera selectable that you can choose and pretty much zoom around to see exactly what you want to see, what angle you want to see on the outside of the car. So you can see if you're going over a line or about to hit a curb or the car behind you, whatever. Very good camera system. And I love how easy it is to call it up. And since we're talking about that center screen, let's talk about that center screen. As you can see, it is a large horizontal touch screen, easy to operate, very intuitive and very responsive to the finger, very simple screen, high quality. It looks good. It feels good. And of course, it includes Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, and it also integrates Google Maps and Google Assistant for an even more seamless experience with other stuff that you may be using. More interesting to me is the gauge cluster screen, which has a few unusual items, the most interesting of which actually relates to the steering wheel, where the control dial on the steering wheel for the gauge cluster screen is, strangely enough, mounted sideways. As you can see, it's not up-down, it's not side-to-side, but it's mounted sideways, and it turns out this is absolutely brilliant, because you can use it to control menus that are horizontal. Or vertical, and both seem totally intuitive when the dial is mounted sideways like this, diagonally. I've never seen this before, but it's brilliant. I'll give you an example. So you want to control the gauge cluster screen while you scroll up and down through the menu items. It's pretty simple. But. You can also press this little button on the steering wheel, and now your dial is controlling what's on the infotainment screen, and you can see the first menu is horizontal. But once again, your diagonal dial is intuitive. You just move it up or down, and because it's mounted diagonally, it's very clear what that means, and it works for both. Again, never seen that before. Surprisingly good innovation. Especially from Infiniti, but let's move back to that gauge cluster screen for a second. I gotta say pros and cons here The big pro is that it's fairly configurable in the center screen to show pretty much whatever you want to see So you want your music to be in here your phone your trip odometer even the Google map? that this car is linked to showing exactly where you are. You can have it all in the center of this gauge cluster screen and you even have an option with this screen to make that central display a larger if you want to see any of those items. Bigger, like the radio you're on, or more importantly, the map, the navigation map, you can enhance it. The drawback with this screen, though, is you really can only configure what's in that central screen. You can't change what's on the left or right, which is a shame because it means you have to choose. You want to see your music or your navigation or your tripodometer. You can only really see one of those at a time. Not a huge deal, but it could have been done better and let you select left or right panels and have more configurability. And next up, we move on to the backseat in the QX80, and I gotta say, it is nice back here. For one thing, it's huge. You got a ton of space back here, knee room, leg room, hip room, head room. It feels very comfortable, like you would expect from a vehicle this size, a full-size luxury SUV, but it really is nice back here. And the trim and materials are once again really top-notch in back, just like they were up front. Now again, fully recognizing this is the top-end trim level. that not a lot of people are going to get. Most are going to probably end up with a mid-tier model. But if you get the nice one, you get a nice back seat, and it is quite an impressive place to spend time. And it has some pretty nice amenities, starting with a full climate control display on the back of the front center console. Not only do you have your own climate zone, so you can adjust temperature and airflow, you also have heated and ventilated seats in the back, which is a very nice luxury feature. And the seats themselves are pow- Power operated. Over on the side of the seat, you can move it forward, backward, recline, do all of the regular power seat functions you might have up front, but now you got them in back too, which is nice. And there's more back here. You can see the back of the front center console. You have... Two USB-C ports and an additional charge port, and there's even more. If you open up the rear center console, you can see back here there's more charge ports for charging even more rear seat devices. And at the front of this rear center console, you have a little panel that opens up to reveal cup holders. Maybe most interestingly, though, in this rear center console, you have a screen back here. And if you turn on the screen, it allows you to make adjustments to the seating position, Now, again, this is the top trim level. Most trims probably will not have this full rear center console with a screen, but if you get the autograph, you get the center console, and it enhances the experience. I guess, to some extent, by providing you with extra duplicate controls. Now, accessing the third row in the QX80 is pretty easy. There's a little switch on the side of the second row. You press and hold, and then the second row seat folds forward. But, and this is crucial, it retains its shape, which is a big deal. Because if you have a car seat in there, that means you don't have to take out the car seat to get easy access to the third row. The car seat will just stay put because the seat shape is staying put, and then you can easily climb into the back. And when you're in the back, you'll discover a few interesting things. For one, again, the same nice material, soft perforated leather, the same stitching and designs. It looks nice back there. And there's a decent amount of legroom. It's not huge, but fairly standard for a vehicle in this segment. More interesting, though, you have a heated seat in back in the third row in the QX80 autograph. You can turn on a heated seat. You also have a power port back there, as you can see, And there's an additional switch. Which you can use to push, to fold the second row seat forward in case you're in the third row and you want to get out easily. The third row is a pretty nice place to be. Maybe not for full-size adults for very long, but especially kids can be back there. They got enough space and some surprisingly nice amenities. And next up we move on to the cargo area in the QX80. Open up the tailgate. You can see... There's not an enormous amount of space back here. It's pretty much par for the course for a three-row SUV because that third row takes up a lot of space. But with that third row in place, you don't have enormous cargo capacity in back. However, you do have a couple of cool things. For one, there's a shelf back here, and if you don't have huge items to put in back, the shelf essentially doubles your cargo space because you can put stuff on the lower and upper portions of this cargo area, which is nice. Of course, you can also easily lower the rear seats with the push of a button. Over on the side, second and third row rear seats can be lowered back here to maximize your cargo space if that's what you're looking for. And, Also worth pointing out in back, you have this cool lighted cargo sill. Which I've never really seen before and frankly, I think it's actually a pretty cool idea. I'm not exactly sure if it's useful, but it certainly looks cool and it classes up the cargo area a bit. Now, if you want to open or close the tailgate, you have a few options on where to do that. There's a button up front in the driver's seat area where you can open or close it. Or you can press this little button here that's kind of hidden in the piano black trim on the tailgate itself. Or you can press a button on the key fob and open it up. And speaking of the key fob, it's not really all that nice considering how nice this car is. It looks good at first glance, but when you pick it up, it's really light, doesn't feel all that high quality. And frankly, looking closer, it's really just a lot of kind of cheap plastic. It's not an ideal key fob situation for a vehicle this expensive. Now, if you've made it this far, you're probably wondering what is powering this thing, this big old full-size SUV. The answer is not a V8. Like other giant SUVs, it's switched away from a V8 for the new generation to a twin-turbo V6, but it's a powerful one, about 450 horsepower and 515 pound-feet of torque. Those are strong figures, and they send this from 0 to 60 in the low 5-second range, which is pretty impressive. It also allows the QX80 to have a towing capacity of around 8,500 pounds, which is more, slightly more, than most of its close rivals. Fuel economy, however, is not particularly impressive. If you get four-wheel drive... 15 miles per gallon in the city, 19 miles per gallon in the highway, not particularly strong numbers. And by the way, I mentioned if you get four-wheel drive, because interestingly, it's not standard on the QX80. This model, the Autograph, has four-wheel drive standard, but the two base trim levels, which start around $85,000 for the entry-level model, they come with rear-wheel drive, and four-wheel drive, all-wheel drive is an optional extra on those As for size, Measuring at about 211 inches long, this is almost exactly the same size as a Cadillac Escalade. And despite the high pricing, 85 grand for the base model, 115 for this, it actually undercuts the Escalade. The base model is cheaper, and this, the top-end model, is also cheaper than the Escalade. But the QX80 doesn't have Escalade name recognition. That's probably the closest this competitor here, but while the QX80 is pretty impressive, the Escalade is known the world over as sort of a cultural icon from rap songs and athletes to all sorts of cool hip people. They want an Escalade, not a QX80, despite the fact that this car's actually been around for a long time. It came out back in 2004 as the Infiniti QX56, and this begins the third generation 20 years after launch, but it's still no Escalade. Anyway, you're probably wondering what it drives like. How is the QX80 on the road? So let's go find out. All right, driving the QX80 Autograph. And I got to tell you, although I have been on the record of making fun of Infiniti many, many times on my podcast and various vehicle reviews. This is actually pretty good and I wasn't expecting it to be. I have a Toyota Sequoia and I have like the top version of the Sequoia which is $85,000 so it's sort of in competition with this and I've always complained that the Sequoia and frankly also the Tahoe and even the Lexus LX they're all pretty trucky. They all ride pretty trucky. They ride and drive trucky. Uh, this is a truck, like it's a body-on-frame truck based on the full-size Armada, but it doesn't really drive so trucky. I'm like actually truly and honestly surprised because I'm going into this with certain biases about Infiniti quality and vehicle products, and I'm driving this and I'm thinking this actually isn't so bad in terms of ride quality. It's actually pretty nice. I really wish that my Sequoia rode like this QX80 does. Frankly, I'm even surprised at the handling, which is not as ponderous or as sort of oafish as I was expecting. This vehicle actually handles, I'm not going to say small, it's a massive vehicle with a massive curb weight, but it handles like okay. It feels more precise and more dialed in than my Sequoia, that's for sure. And similarly, it feels more precise than a Tahoe or Or an Escalade, honestly, which has a lot of vagueness to its steering. And I also want to make the point, just like the steering is not sports car steering, the ride is not like Rolls-Royce ride, but it's better than a lot of these trucky SUVs. And you have this powerful V6. Now, I am not at all one of these people who's like, V8 or bust. I won't do anything other than a V8. I'm starting to speak. I don't believe in any of that stuff. I think that stuff is silly. And this six-cylinder does a pretty good job in terms of acceleration. I mean, zero to 60 in a low five-second range to move a vehicle this significant in size is pretty impressive. And it has good low-range power, which I think is the one thing that a lot of V6s, turbo V6s miss compared to the old big V8s, that sort of low-end grunt when you first press the accelerator pedal. But this has it. It feels great at low speeds. I gotta be honest. To be honest, I wasn't expecting... There's Infiniti to come up with a vehicle that I truly and honestly think is up there with the best in class, at least from a driving perspective. And I really believe that. Like, I really mean that and believe that. This drives shockingly well. So what are the drawbacks to the driving experience, if any? Honestly... I'm like struggling to come up with any really significant driving experience drawbacks in here. The drawbacks, I would say, are twofold. One is the stupid turn signal that goes back to center. It's so insane that that's still a thing that Infiniti is trying to make happen when everybody else has completely abandoned it. But the other obvious drawback is the brand name. I mean, at the end of the day, Infiniti... is certainly not, you know, Escalade, right? Or it's certainly not G-Wagon or GLS, Mercedes-Benz, Range Rover. And despite the fact that I truly now, having driven this car, think this is a fairly credible, competitive vehicle in this full-size SUV, luxury SUV space, I still wouldn't necessarily buy it just because I... The QX80 has always been like the rental car version, like the budget wish.com version of a Range Rover. This is a really well done car, but it's still hard to escape all the damage they've done to the Infiniti brand name over the last 20 years, making substandard products based primarily on lease deals and fleet sales. Infiniti just doesn't and won't have the same pull as some of these other full-size luxury SUVs. And based on what I know about why people buy luxury SUVs, I have a suspicion a lot of people would be willing to overlook some flaws of rivals if it meant they could get like a cooler brand name or a cooler design and styling uh and they'd pick a Range Rover or they'd pick an Escalade even though they know it's not necessarily the better car because it's just cooler. And this certainly isn't cool, although it is surprisingly quite good. And so, that's the new 2025 Infiniti QX80. This is actually shockingly good, with decent performance, good technology, and big luxury. Nice materials and a great, comfortable driving experience, but it's a hard sell at $115,000, or even at the $85,000 base price of the QX80. Again, this is a good vehicle, but it's hard to imagine a lot of people are going to pick this over competent rivals with much better name recognition and brand value. Anyway, now it's time to give the new QX80 a Doug score. And the Doug score is here, 57 out of 100, which places the QX80 here against rivals. The QX80 is actually a surprisingly competitive vehicle, falling only just short of class leaders like the Cadillac Escalade and Mercedes-Benz GLS. It's surprisingly well done, with improved styling over the old one, decent performance, good tech, nice materials, and a good ride quality, and I would seriously consider it against top big luxury SUVs. The QX80's primary drawback is its brand name, which just can't compete with Escalade Navigator or Mercedes-Benz.