WHISTLER, B.C. — In the luxury SUV space, bigger is better, more is more, and the higher you are off the ground, the more people should bow down and worship you. The 2025 Infiniti QX80 embodies all of this. There’s more power, more capability, and more tech baked in—without losing sight of what made leather-lined Goliath a staple at the top of Infiniti’s lineup.
And yes, it’s still big. Very, very big.
It’s no secret the mega-SUV space is dominated by more established players like the BMW X7, the full-size, big-body Range Rover, and the Cadillac Escalade. It’s also no secret that Infiniti perhaps isn’t at the top of most buyers’ shopping lists in this space, mostly because other marques simply do a better job at this whole “luxury” thing. So, the 2025 QX80 has work to do: it not only needs to win over buyers who’d otherwise shell out for an X7 or an Escalade, but also live up to its status as Infiniti’s flagship.
The armada of updates—pun intended—to the newest QX80 start under the hood. The V8 is gone, replaced by Infiniti’s familiar 3.5L twin-turbo V6, putting out 450 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque in this application. Look, we’ll never not shed a tear when a normally aspirated V8 bites the dust in favour of something with fewer cylinders and a snail or two bolted to it, but it’s a welcome upgrade here.
The new boosted V6 is much more potent than the V8, it builds power effortlessly, it gets this big behemoth hustling surprisingly well considering the QX80’s sheer size, and it’s so much better on gas. The 2025 QX80 is rated at 15.5 L/100 kilometres in the city, 12.2 highway, and 13.8 combined. That’s way better than the 2024 QX80, which did 15.1 L/100 km combined. We averaged 12.8 over 300-ish kilometres through the sweepers and elevation changes on the way to Whistler.
The new V6 puts the power down through a nine-speed automatic transmission and a four-wheel-drive system shared with the Nissan Patrol overseas. That means there’s a decent bit of off-road capability baked into the QX80, but that doesn’t compromise its on-road manners too much. All Canadian-spec QX80s come standard with an air suspension setup. It does a mostly good job at filtering out bumps, potholes, and other imperfections, but still being underpinned by a body-on-frame chassis, the QX80 feels a smidge too stiff over choppy pavement and bigger potholes. The 22-inch wheels on the top-spec Autograph trim didn’t help.
Aside from the sometimes flinty ride, the 2025 QX80 is a serene brick. Wind and road noise are almost non-existent, its steering feels sharp, and the nine-speed auto is almost invisible. The QX80 is also big: it’s more than 17 feet long bumper-to-bumper, 7.7 feet wide from the tip of one mirror to the other, and up to 6.5 feet tall depending on its ride height setting. Placing this gargantuan brick in a lane can sometimes be challenging, especially through downtown traffic, and four-wheel steering would improve its manoeuvrability. But it’s a capable brick, with up to 10 inches of ground clearance and the ability to tow up to 8,500 pounds.
Inside, Infiniti promises that “every seat is first-class.” The QX80 certainly delivers with a pair of La-Z-Boy chairs up front, excellent fit-and-finish, and a new layout dominated by two 14.3-inch displays—living under one glass panel—spanning across the dashboard. There’s another nine-inch display below on the centre stack. This one is for adjusting the climate control and drive modes, and has with haptic feedback. They’re all crisp-looking, responsive, easy to use, and well-integrated into the QX80’s overall design. Best of all, there’s physical switchgear peppered throughout including a volume knob, but we’re not so hot on the liberal use of gloss black trim. Still, the flowing lines, open-pore wood trim, metallic accents, and top-notch materials all look and feel great.
All QX80s come with a Klipsch sound system. The base Luxe has 14 speakers, while the Sensory and Autograph trims have a grand total of 24. It has a couple of tricks up its sleeve: apparently, Infiniti hired a 24-piece orchestra to record a sick “Demo” mode you can use to flex to your friends. And with the headrest-mounted speakers, you can take a call without having the music cut out for the whole car, plus the caller on the other end won’t here the tunes. For the driver, though, having the music and a phone call going on at the same time can be distracting. Oh well, just hang up and crank up the volume. The 24-speaker Klipsch system sounds clear and hits hard. The right song will give you goosebumps.
Tech-wise, the 2025 QX80 doesn’t skimp out, but two features stand out. The first is ProPilot 2.1, Infiniti’s full suite of active safety and driver assists. You get everything you’d expect today, plus a new hands-free driving feature. As long as you don’t rely on it too much going through a corner, it’s smooth and smart. It can change lanes on its own, but unlike Super Cruise, it doesn’t initiate said lane change on its own. The second standout is the QX80’s array of cameras. You definitely need them in a behemoth like this, and they’re genuinely useful for squeezing through tighter spots. Among the clever tricks it can do, you can set up the front-facing camera to spill across both displays for an extra-wide view, and you can geo-tag the cameras to come on automatically. Neat!
Once upon a time, Infiniti was a force to be reckoned with in the luxury space. That was a long time ago; regaining that relevance won’t happen overnight, but the redesigned, third-generation QX80 is a big step in the right direction. It’s cushy, it’s packing some innovative tech, and it can boogie. If this is a sign of things to come for Infiniti, we like what we see.
The 2025 Infiniti QX80 starts at $104,995 for the base Luxe trim, and tops out at $124,995 for the top-spec Autograph. They’re in dealerships as you finish reading this sentence.
