Audi

Audi’s upcoming all-electric e-tron quattro SUV, which is expected to go into production in 2018, was spotted testing and towing a trailer – giving us a glimpse of the capacity of the vehicle. 
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Following the emission test cheating scandal and now allegations that the German automakers created a cartel to deploy their strategy to fake their emission cutting effort, the country’s industry is in a crisis.

A likely winner to come on top of this disastrous situation is the electric car segment. German automakers have been investing in the technology in an attempt to distance themselves from diesel.

In the latest example of that, Audi is reportedly trying to cut gas and diesel R&D by 10 billion euros (~12 billion USD) in order to finance its electric car development.
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The first few seasons of the all-electric Formula E championship have been more successful than most motorsport fans would have ever predicted.

Over the past few months, it managed to convince Audi and BMW to take spots for future seasons and this week, Mercedes-Benz has now announced that it will have its own team.

While all those premium automakers are joining the Formula E, Tesla has been surprisingly staying away from the all-electric championship despite being a leader in the development and commercialization of EVs.
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Audi has been showing a lot of interest in electric motorsports over the last year – going as far as quitting Le Mans to focus on all-electric Formula E.

They have been increasing their involvement with the ABT Sportsline team and today, they announced that they are officially taking over the team’s slot.
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Automakers and battery makers have been quite secretive about their battery costs, which have long been believed to be one of the main barriers to electric car adoption.

It’s why it’s surprising to see Dr. Peter Mertens, Audi’s senior vice-president of research and development, disclosing the cost of the automaker’s batteries for the upcoming new generation of vehicles that they are about to launch. 
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While Audi’s electric vehicle effort still mostly only exist in press releases and concepts, it looks like it’s about to move to production in a significant way if we are to believe them.

The German automaker confirmed today that the e-tron Sportback, which they were just teasing Tesla and Elon Musk about in a new billboard ad, will go into production at its Brussels plant in 2019.
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Legacy automakers have targeted Tesla in ads before, like BMW’s anti-Model 3 commercials and Nissan’s Leaf ads aimed at Model 3 reservation holders.

Audi is the latest automaker to go after Tesla in its ads – though it appears to be more in an attempt at humor than a targeted effort to mitigate the impact of Model 3 reservations on their sales, like the previous ones from BMW and Nissan.  
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There’s nothing more concrete in the electric vehicle revolution than when legacy automakers are converting internal combustion engine production capacity to electric motor production.

Audi seems to understand that as it previews its new electric car factory by saying: “electric motors instead of internal combustion engines, batteries instead of fuel tanks.”
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Things on the electric vehicle front are going to become interesting at Audi quite soon.

Their first all-electric vehicle built from the ground up to be electric, Audi e-tron quattro, is coming next year and they already started taking reservations in Norway. They unveiled the e-tron Sportback – pictured above – with ~300 miles of range for production in 2019.

Now they confirm that they plan yet another EV for 2020.
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There has been a lot of changes in Tesla’s Autopilot leadership over the past few months and most of it can be linked back to former Autopilot program director Sterling Anderson leaving to form his own startup and Chris Lattner taking over the top role in the program, which happened in December 2016 and January 2017 respectively.

A few more senior Autopilot team members have since left, including the head of Tesla Vision, and we now learn that one of them is now leading an autonomous driving effort for Audi.
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Audi has had a very remarkable and successful history in rally racing. In the early eighties, long before Red Bull came around, Audi first introduced their 4WD Quattro system and shattered the competition. Then after a number of successful years, Audi launched one of the most powerful and infamous Group B rally cars, the Audi Sport Quattro S1 . Its combination of a 4WD Quattro system, a turbocharged engine, and a carbon-kevlar body shell meant that these cars literally flew around the rally stages in the most spectacular and dangerous ways. No wings required.

Now Audi will have a go at it again but this time with electric powered rally cars. Attracted by the abundant and instant torque of electric engines, Audi motorsport boss Wolfgang Durheimer has indicated that the prospect of electrified rallycross is a very intriguing one.

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Audi is opening reservations for its first production electric vehicle today ahead of the official launch later this year. We have often portrayed the Audi e-tron quattro as the first of a series of upcoming all-electric vehicles from German premium automakers, but it’s finally not only some distant concepts, but an actual all-electric SUV coming to market with Audi’s 2018 model lineup.
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After teasing the vehicle yesterday, Audi has officially unveiled its new electric vehicle concept, the e-tron Sportback, at the Auto Shanghai 2017 today.

As we expected, the German automaker confirmed that the vehicle will serve as the basis for its second all-electric vehicle to go to production after the quattro e-tron. Audi says that the new electric coupé crossover will hit the market as soon as 2019 – about a year after the quattro.
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Audi is preparing to unveil a new electric vehicle at the Shanghai Auto Show this week and it recently released a series of teaser images and full design sketches of the concept called ‘Audi e-tron Sportback concept’.
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Well it’s not exactly surprising since Porsche and Audi are both premium automakers under the Volkswagen group, but they made it official today. The two German automakers announced that they are now sharing a vehicle architecture strategy for “electrification, digitization, and autonomous driving.”

They will cooperate and create teams from both companies to work on the next generation of vehicles coming out of each brand.
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Audi’s top labor representative Peter Mosch demanded today that Audi build an upcoming all-electric model in their main plant in Ingolstadt, Germany, reasoning that employees of the main factory should not be left out as the industry moves towards electric vehicles. The comments were made in a speech to 7,000 workers at Audi’s 43,000-employee Ingolstadt plant.

Audi has previously stated that they plan to locate production of their all-electric models in a smaller 16,000-employee plant in Neckarsulm, where the company currently makes its higher-end vehicles. Planned electric models include the quattro e-tron SUV, a sportscar and a compact car, the latter two of which are still yet to be unveiled.

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Audi’s upcoming quattro e-tron SUV is expected to be the first in a series of new all-electric premium vehicles from German automakers. Mercedes, Porsche, and BMW are all planning new electric vehicles to come out between 2018 and 2021.

The company has now revealed plans for two more electric vehicles to follow the SUV next year: an electric sports car and an electric compact, said CEO Rupert Stadler via AutoExpress.
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Audi’s e-tron quattro SUV could become next year the first in a series of premium all-electric vehicles to come to market. Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, and other premium automakers are all planning EVs for the end of the decade, but the way the vehicles program are set up, Audi is apparently ahead of the pack with its 2018 release.

But of course, Tesla is already well-established in the premium electric vehicle segment with the Model S, a large sedan, and the Model X, a premium SUV.

While discussing the upcoming launch of the e-tron quattro, Audi’s Chief of Sales and Marketing, Dietmar Voggenreiter, decided to ignore the Model X and claim that with the e-tron quattro, Audi will be “the first real premium manufacturer doing a premium electric SUV”(via Autocar).
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At this point, most industry watchers would agree that car dealers are a barrier to the electrification of the car industry. Recent studies have painted a negative (borderline disastrous) picture of the electric vehicle shopping experience. Car dealers’ lack of interest in selling EVs have led to poor knowledge about the vehicles, no inventories, cars often being left uncharged and not ready for test drives.

Knowing car dealers make most of their money from service and that EVs have fewer moving parts and therefore require less service, Tesla anticipated the issue and decided to operate its own sales force. But other automakers are stuck with their dealership networks and they are now trying to get them on-board with EVs in order to be competitive in the ongoing electrification of the industry.
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Today, Audi announced a new a deal with FAW, its Chinese manufacturing partner, to expand its activities in China and introduce a series of luxury all-electric vehicles as well as a broader electrification of their lineup.

The German automaker took notice that China became the world’s biggest electric vehicle market last year and considering the Volkswagen group, Audi’s parent company, is among the few automakers committing to volume production of EVs, they will need market shares in China to sell those vehicles.
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Audi’s first all-electric vehicle is expected to hit the market in 2018 and be the first of a series of upcoming all-electric vehicles by the Volkswagen group. Before going all-electric, Audi is introducing its second plug-in electric vehicle after the Audi A3 e-tron: a new Audi Q8 SUV.

What is particularly interesting is that the German automaker claims it will bring the vehicle to production very quickly after having unveiled it just this week at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS).
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