While driving at about 60 mph on highway, several systems in the car failed without prior warning. The message on dashboard said Catastrophic Electric System Failure. Brakes would not work for a moment and then started working. All windows came down and went up on their own. No lights were working. No blinkers or side lights were working. With a lot of difficulty and hand signals moved to the hard shoulder. The engine would not turn off for several minutes and turned off after multiple attempts. Audi tested the vehicle and found multiple DTC's in various modules - all sporadic and happened at the same time. Audi did software update and is waiting for another software update to be approved by EPA. The Director of Service at Audi thinks the failure may be also due to a problem with hardware/battery. He said he does not trust the vehicle in its current state and the vehicle is presently grounded at the dealership.
2025 Audi Q5 E
Routine
Owners filed 1 complaints about this vehicle with federal regulators, most often about the service brakes. No safety recall has been issued.
What fails
| Component | Reports | Crashes | Fires | Injuries | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service Brakes | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
What owners reported
Newest filingsService Brakes
Filed Aug 19, 2026CA
1 of 1 complaints, reproduced as filed.
Reading this record
No unusual pattern of severe incidents in the complaint record.
Complaint counts track how many cars were sold and how long they have been on the road as much as they track quality. A common model from 2013 has had a decade to accumulate reports; a rare one from last year has not. The signal worth weighing is in the severity columns, in whether the same component keeps appearing, and in whether the manufacturer eventually opened a recall for it.
Most recent recall on file: none. Source: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.