The Q8 e-tron Sportback’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Macan Electric doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the Q8 e-tron Sportback and Macan Electric have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Q8 e-tron Sportback has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The Macan Electric’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
The Q8 e-tron Sportback’s standard pretensioning seatbelts also sense rear collisions and remove slack from the seatbelts to help protect the occupants from whiplash and other injuries. The Macan Electric doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The Q8 e-tron Sportback has a standard Secondary Collision Brake Assist, which automatically applies the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The Macan Electric doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
Earlier warning of stopped traffic, traffic signals, dangerous road conditions, weather, or accidents, can keep driver's safer and prevent crashes. The Q8 e-tron Sportback has Car-to-X Services, a system that seemlesly communicates important warnings to the driver about impending danger, if they're available. The Macan Electric doesn’t offer a system that can receive automated systems from infrastructure.
Both the Q8 e-tron Sportback and the Macan Electric have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, all wheel drive, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning and available around view monitors.
The Audi Q8 e-tron Sportback weighs 405 to 551 pounds more than the Porsche Macan Electric. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
The Audi Q8 e-tron Sportback achieved a “Top Safety Pick” rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for the 2024 model year. This recognition was based on its impressive performance in the small overlap frontal crash test, updated side impact crash test, headlight evaluations, and pedestrian crash prevention testing. The Macan Electric has not yet been evaluated by the IIHS for 2024.