At its AGM in Neckarsulm, German automaker Audi set out its enthusiastic plans for the future consisting of bringing autonomous and electric vehicles to market prior to decade’s end and revamping five of its most popular models before the end of 2018.
“We are renewing our model portfolio enormously,” stated company CEO Rupert Stadler of Audi’s product roadmap. And the renewing will begin in July in Barcelona with the formal unveiling of its flagship A8 high-end sedan, a car that is going to have to take on the technological cutting edge that is the recent BMW 7 Series and the uncomplicated comfort and active safety of the Mercedes S-Class, itself seriously upgraded for 2017.
Even now, the company is positive that the A8 will have the preferred impact. “We will show the world everything that defines Vorsprung durch Technik and our brand,” stated Stadler. The A8 will be followed by a new A7 fastback later on in the year, probably at the Frankfurt Autoshow in September.
In terms of electrification, Audi is teaming up with Porsche on drive train and architecture and aims to bring three plug-in battery electric vehicles to market by 2020 under the e-tron banner. Once established the company plans to begin offering electrified versions of its core model range as forecasted demand for electric vehicles boosts.
And it is the pressing demand that is driving Audi to include more models to its currently extensive SUV range. “We will broaden our successful Q family by 2019 with 2 brand-new concepts– the Audi Q8 and the Audi Q4,” stated Stadler. The former will contend directly with the Range Rover and BMW X7 where as the latter is expected to be really similar to the Porsche Macan and for that reason challenge the Mercedes GLC Coupé.
Throughout the shareholder meeting, Audi also described its preparation for autonomous innovation, now that it has been provided ultimate duty for developing self-driving vehicles for the whole Volkswagen Group.
Its ultimate short-term goal is to obtain a self-driving system all set for market that can handle busy urban environments– a far more complicated demand than highway cruising– and to roll it out to an amount of compact city vehicles by 2021.
