Audi commits to developing 30 EVs and plug-in hybrids by 2025
The e-tron is just the opening salvo in Ingolstadt’s forward-looking sustainability campaignAudi is embarked on an ambitious plan to roll out 30 green vehicles between now and 2025, according to the managing director at Audi Australia, Paul Sansom.
Speaking at the live-streaming presentation for the new Audi e-tron and e-tron Sportback earlier this week, Sansom stated: “Audi’s vision of electric mobility is really exciting.
“Here and now we have the e-tron SUV and its sibling, the e-tron Sportback.
“But what comes after this? What’s next for Audi?
“We’ve said that we’ll have 30 electrified models – both full electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids – by 2025. And by then, electrified vehicles will make up some 40 per cent of total global sales.
“The next models we’ll see are the Q4 e-tron and the e-tron GT. The Q4 e-tron is a compact SUV and the e-tron GT will be the first fully electric sports car from Audi, produced by Audi Sport GmbH. Both will make their global debut before the end of this year.”
Sansom hinted that the Audi Q4 e-tron and the Audi e-tron GT would both be coming to Australia, with details of pricing and specification to be revealed further down the track.
At least one of the 30 new designs will be Project Artemis, a vehicle that is expected to be a small city car offering a high level of autonomous control.
Sansom didn’t specifically mention fuel-cell vehicles, but it’s reasonable to presume that one of the 30 will be the hydrogen car known to be under development by Audi with assistance from Hyundai.
As Audi’s Board Member for Technical Development at Audi AG, Hans-Joachim Rothenpieler, told carsales last year, gathering interesting in electric vehicles is not just driven by environmental legislation or marketing, it’s also a natural outcome of the increased cost of reducing tailpipe emissions of CO2 for those last few micrograms. As R&D costs for electric vehicles come down, the see-saw effect ramps up costs to develop internal-combustion vehicles.
So there’s a very strong chance that EV affordability will finally reach a favourable tipping point during the next five years.
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