2015 Infiniti QX80 loses some of its awkwardness and gains a new ‘Limited’ trim

By Davis Adams Published April 15, 2014

The Q70 isn’t the only Infiniti to get a makeover at this year’s New York Auto Show. The brand’s flagship SUV, the QX80 (formerly the QX56) also gains new styling cues from the Q50 sedan, and loses some of its whale-like styling in the process.

We’ve had a love-hate relationship with the QX80 since it was redesigned in 2011, when the oversized SUV lost its butch, angular styling. On one hand, it had grown into a bit of an eyesore, with awkward proportions and a weird translation of the brand’s sweeping design over a giant box. However, its interior made it one of the most luxurious SUVs on the market, and under the hood was a very capable 4×4 system that could haul the entire family over just about any terrain. Plus, the QX just cost less than its competitors, making it a relative bargain for the segment.

For 2015, the QX80 aims to soften some of its shortcomings with updated front and rear fascia, LED headlamps, and several new interior finishes that Infiniti claims, “wouldn’t feel out of place in an executive board room or private jet.”

The 2015 Infiniti QX80 will also come in an optional “Limited” guise, which comes with dark, Truffle brown interior, with brown, black and silver wood and metal trims throughout the cabin. The QX80 is already cavernous, and we think this new trim might just earn it man-cave status in our book, too.

The new QX80 goes on sale in fall 2014.

Interested in more auto show news? Take a look at our coverage from New York.

Former Contributor

Whether you're talking about gadgets or cars, Davis always seems to prefer "next year's models." He's a neophile to the core…

Topics

Cars

Volvo is rolling out Apple Music to over 2 million cars with a simple OTA update

Your Volvo may soon get Apple Music without needing CarPlay

Interior view of the 2024 Volvo EX90.

The line between your smartphone and your car continues to blur. Volvo has announced that it is rolling out an over-the-air software update that brings Apple Music directly to the infotainment systems of more than 2 million vehicles worldwide. Instead of relying on Apple CarPlay or plugging in an iPhone, eligible drivers will be able to stream music natively from their car's built-in system, making Apple Music another integrated feature of Volvo's software experience.

The update is arriving for a wide range of Volvo models, including the EX90, ES90, XC90, S90, V90, XC60, S60, V60, XC40, EX40 and EC40, covering model year 2020 onwards. Availability, however, may vary depending on the vehicle.

Cars

Chery’s latest EV packs flagship tech for the price of a base Tesla, but you can’t buy it

Here's everything packed into Exeed's 2027 Exlantix ES, from its 27-sensor autonomous driving suite to its 860 km range, all starting under $31,000.

Car, Transportation, Vehicle

Chery's premium arm just dropped a sedan that makes you wonder why American EVs cost twice as much for half the tech.

Exeed's 2027 Exlantix ES ships with a driver-assist system called Falcon 700. It is built around an Nvidia Orin-Y chip and a genuinely stacked sensor suite.

Cars

A new AI model wants self-driving cars to think before they swerve

Forget guessing games, this self-driving AI actually shows its work.

Self driving car

Self-driving cars have gotten pretty good at driving. The harder problem is teaching them to drive safely in situations nobody planned for. We have heard horror stories of self-driving cars, behaving erratically in emergency situations, often times delaying first responders from reaching the scene.

A team at Seoul National University, led by professor Jun Won Choi from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, thinks they have cracked part of that puzzle with a new AI model called SafeDrive. The research was recently selected as a highlight paper at CVPR 2026, a distinction that goes only to roughly 3% of all submissions.