Audi Q9 still coming

Audi will launch an all-new SUV in Australia mid-year, but the 2024 Audi Q4 e-tron certainly won’t be the last additional SUV from the Volkswagen Group’s luxury brand.

The German car-maker will roll out a number of new models over the next two years and one of them is all but certain to be a super-sized premium SUV flagship bearing Audi Q9 badges – and could look something like one of these AI-generated images.

Indeed, the Audi Q9 is shaping up as the next major creation from Ingolstadt – an upper-large luxury SUV that would be bigger, longer and more lavish than the brand’s current SUV flagship, the Q7 (which measures just over five metres long), as well as the closely related Q8.

Expected to compete against extra-large luxury SUVs like the BMW X7, Lexus LX and Mercedes-Benz GLS with a similar 5.2-metre length, the Audi Q9 has not been officially confirmed but spy photos of the big SUV have been snapped in the past.

Audi executives have never shut the door on the Audi Q9 and local execs have now signalled that several all-new models will be launched within the next two years, suggesting a launch date in 2024 or 2025.

Audi Australia director Jeff Mannering didn’t mince his words when quizzed over whether there was scope for the brand to move into the upper-large SUV segment.

“Yes of course. If you just look at volume versus different brands, we’re not in some segments that others are in,” he told carsales, adding fuel to the speculative Audi Q9 fire.

“Are we looking at it? From an Australian point of view, probably not in isolation but I think globally, they [Audi HQ] are looking at different segments and what’s successful in some of the bigger markets.”

Despite playing down Audi Australia’s influence on new model development and customer requirements, Mannering explained that Australia was a top 15 market for the car-maker globally and that “We’ve got a little more clout now”.

“Australia is an important market, in particular with SUVs because it’s a pretty high mix of our model range. Like Q7 and Q8 – it’s up there on volume for us and we have good profitability on the cars as well.

“Let’s see what happens in the next 24 months,” he advised, agreeing with a smile that the Q9 name has a ring to it.

“Yeah it does.”

Audi Australia’s product planning manager, Matt Dale, expanded on the current sales situation, confirming Australia’s importance to the brand’s large SUV global strategy.

“With Q7 we’re in the top 10 [markets by sales volume] globally. We get engineers coming out to test the cars specific to the Australian market just because we are in the top 10. So it offers great opportunities for a broader range in the future,” he said.

If the Audi Q9 does break cover by the end of 2025, it would very likely get the go-fast treatment from Audi Sport in quick succession, with the hypothetical Audi RS Q9 gunning for the Mercedes-AMG GLS 63.

“We’re number four [for sales] in the world for RS models,” said Mannering, highlighting just how important Audi’s performance sub-brand is Down Under.

“If we could get more cars we would sell more RS models and we’d probably be number three in terms of global Audi RS sales. We’re really high up in the volume of RS – Australians love performance cars, they love SUVs,” he said.

Images: Unofficial renders generated by AI