- 2025 Infiniti QX80 trades a 400-hp 5.6-liter V-8 for a 450-hp twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6
- QX80's cabin is bigger and better appointed
- The QX80's luxury is in its many details, including massaging second-row seats and headrest speakers
Driving the 2025 Infiniti QX80 around the roads of Napa Valley, Calif., I keep noticing new details. Between the big SUV’s cool tech gadgets, luxurious cabin, numerous amenities, and new design, I find a lot to like. That’s important because few people need a big, lumbering, thirsty SUV like this. They have to want it, and those fun features give buyers reason to consider it over segment leaders such as the Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator.
2025 Infiniti QX80: Bold new design, bigger cabin
It all starts with the way the 2025 QX80 looks. It’s still big and blocky like its competitors, but it incorporates some more organic shapes and takes Infiniti in a new design direction. Up front, the chrome or black mesh grille of the past is replaced by a black grille with angled vertical slats inspired by the shapes of a bamboo forest. Daytime running lights flare out from its top edges like piano keys. The profile maintains a slightly rounded, slab-sided shape, but the windows change to a blacked-out look that extends all the way to the rear. At the rear, a full-width taillight echoes the piano key look of the front. In all, it’s imposing yet stylish, like an NFL linebacker dressed up for the ESPYs.
2025 Infiniti QX80 first drive, Napa Valley, June 2024
2025 Infiniti QX80 first drive, Napa Valley, June 2024
2025 Infiniti QX80
The cabin changes even more. Upholstered in tan and black or red and black, it comes standard with synthetic leather but the real thing becomes standard just one rung up the model ladder from Pure to Luxe. The main change inside involves screens, though. New 14.3-inch screens sit side-by-side to act as the instrument cluster and center touchscreen. The infotainment system includes Google built-in, Amazon Alexa, and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. In my limited time with the system, it works well, with quick reactions to inputs and an easy-to-follow interface.
Another screen sits below the dash for touch-style climate controls and yet another screen is available on the second-row center conole for seat controls and climate settings. All the screens integrate well with the carefully assembled soft surfaces to provide the look of an upscale office.
The upholstery is available with softer semi-aniline leather and diamond-pattern stitching, and it’s complemented by metal and wood trim, including open-pore wood, and an available suede headliner. It all makes for a rich, inviting cabin that also offers plenty of toys to play with.
Occupants and cargo also have more room this year as the QX80 grows slightly in size. At 211.2 inches long, it grows an inch but rides on the same 121.0-inch wheelbase. However, it’s 3.4 inches wider at 83.3 inches and it rises 2.1 inches higher to 77.9 inches tall. That gives it 22.0 cubic feet of cargo space behind the third row (up from 15.0 cubic feet), 59.0 cubic feet behind the second row, and a cavernous 101.0 cubic feet behind the first row. Those numbers trail the short version of the Escalade by 3.5, 13.9, and 21.0 cubic feet, respectively, which is odd because they’re within an inch of each other in overall length.
Infiniti provides standard seating for seven with second-row captain’s chairs, but a second-row bench is an option to seat eight total. At 5-foot-9, I can set the seats to give me room to sit in every row. The third row has good headroom and decent legroom, but low seat bottoms mean I have to sit knees up. Three adults also wouldn’t fit back there, but three tweens probably would.
2025 Infiniti QX80 first drive, Napa Valley, June 2024
2025 Infiniti QX80 first drive, Napa Valley, June 2024
2025 Infiniti QX80 first drive, Napa Valley, June 2024
2025 Infiniti QX80 first drive, Napa Valley, June 2024
2025 Infiniti QX80: Luxury and details
More than the design, the QX80 appeals for its goodies. Priced from $84,445, the base Pure model comes standard with heated 10-way power-adjustable front seats, driver’s seat memory, power-folding third-row seats, heated second-row captain’s chairs a power tilt/telescoping steering wheel, remote starting, a wireless phone charger, and a 14-speaker Klipsch audio system.
Buyers moving up the chain can get semi-aniline leather, massaging first- and second-row seats, power-folding second-row seats, heated third-row seats, a front center console cool box, cameras that let occupants take selfies (highly needed, right?) in the vehicle and record crashes outside of it, and a couple of party tricks, one in its climate control system and another with the high-end 24-speaker Klipsch audio system.
Two of the Klipsch system’s extra speakers are located in the front headrests, and they let the driver and front passenger hear navigation directions or a phone call even while the music continues to play over the audio system so the occupants can continue to rock out. On the other end of the line, the music is filtered out for the caller.
The other party trick is biometric cooling, which automatically detects if second-row occupants are getting warm and automatically directs the air toward them. Infiniti says it can make those passengers comfortable in half the time of a standard climate control system.
A surround-view camera system also comes standard and it offers up to nine camera views. They include a Front Wide View and an Invisible Hood View. Front Wide View projects a wide-angle view across both 14.3-inch screens and lets drivers see around objects that they couldn’t normally see from the driver’s seat because the wide-angle cameras are located at the front of the vehicle. Invisible Hood View is mostly self-explanatory, and it works by remembering the view ahead and calculating the vehicle’s position as it moves forward. It’s great for avoiding ruts or getting over off-road obstacles, but the QX80 isn’t really meant as an off-roader.
The final bit of advanced tech is the available ProPilot Assist version 2.1, which allows hands-free driving on an undisclosed number of divided highways. On a freeway in Napa, I’m able to drive about 15 miles without my hands on the wheel, though I have to pay attention to the road ahead. The system performs lane changes when I tap the turn signal, but it doesn’t change lanes proactively to avoid slow-moving traffic, unlike GM’s Super Cruise. While I have no problem using the system, other journalists at the launch program can’t get it to work, indicating there may be teething issues in the early stages of the rollout.
2025 Infiniti QX80 first drive, Napa Valley, June 2024
2025 Infiniti QX80 first drive, Napa Valley, June 2024
2025 Infiniti QX80 first drive, Napa Valley, June 2024
2025 Infiniti QX80: Better bones
The QX80 is also better at its core. Redesigned from the ground up, it rides on a ladder frame that has 57% more torsional rigidity. It adopts a double-wishbone suspension front and rear, and all but the base Pure model come with adaptive dampers and an air suspension. The latter gives the vehicle a standard 7.9 inches of ground clearance, but it can raise that to 10.0 inches in the Off-Road mode, and lower it to 5.1 inches when parked to ease ingress and egress.
In the milieu of an Escalade or Navigator, the QX80 is still a big body-on-frame beast. It weighs about three tons and covers a large footprint, so handling isn’t this monster’s forte. It leans notably in corners but feels better controlled than that American duo of excessive SUVs, thanks in part to direct, albeit slow, steering with some decent heft. I’m driving only the top Autograph model and while the big 275/50R22 Bridgestone Alenza tires iron out most of Napa’s minor road imperfections and never crashes over bumps, rippled pavement causes some truck-like jiggle that rivals filter out better.
A larger improvement has been made under the hood, where Infiniti has retired the now-ancient 5.6-liter V-8 that gave the QX80’s progenitor, the QX56, its name as far back as 2004. In its place is a new twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6 derived from the engines in the Q50 Red Sport where it displaces 3.0 liters and the GT-R sports coupe where it’s punched out to 3.8 liters.
The new engine increases horsepower from 400 to 450 hp and raises torque from 413 to 516 lb-ft. The power flows to the rear or all four wheels through a 9-speed automatic transmission that replaces a 7-speed.
The new V-6 bests the old V-8 in almost every way. It’s stronger from a stop, with a 0-60 mph time I’d estimate in the seven-second range, and it has more power at the ready to pass at highway speeds. It may not sound as good, but its refined and muffled howl still pleases the ear. It works well with the new transmission that shifts smoothly and keeps the engine in its power band when needed. It also delivers the same 8,500 pounds of towing capacity while improving fuel economy by 2 mpg overall to 16 mpg city, 20 highway, 18 combined with rear-wheel drive and 15/19/17 mpg with four-wheel drive.
Given the cumbersome handling and poor fuel economy, vehicles like the QX80 are best used for families who tow trailers and haul people on a regular basis. Those who do chose it will have to pay up. That $84,445 starting price is $8,400 more than last year. Buyers have to pony up another $3,150 for four-wheel drive in the base Pure and step-up Luxe models, and the Luxe starts at $91,445 while adding leather, cooled front seats, power sliding and reclining second-row seats, the air suspension and adaptive dampers, cooled second-row seats, a head-up display, and 22-inch wheels.
While the Luxe appeals as the best value, buyers who want all of those goodies that I enjoy discovering in California will have to cough up $112,545 for the top-of-the-line Autograph model. That gets into the high end of Escalade territory and the low end of Land Rover Range Rover turf. Few people need a vehicle like any of these, but the QX80’s cool new look and variety of gadgets might attract buyers away from those stalwarts.
Infiniti paid for travel and lodging for Motor Authority to bring you this firsthand report.
