Audi's Le Mans racer for the road axed?

The surprise dismissal of Audi’s head of technical development, Wolfgang Durheimer, could result in the German company’s ambitious R18 e-tron quattro supercar project being still-born.

Durheimer left his post as CEO of Bentley and Bugatti to become Audi R&D chief last September. Now, a number of European media outlets are reporting he has left the company.

Audi is yet to comment on Durheimer’s apparent departure, but the UK’s AutoExpress has quoted an unnamed source as confirming that Durheimer will be leaving “very shortly and abruptly”.

A separate report in a German newspaper named Volkswagen’s head of development Dr Ulrich Hackenberg as his likely replacement.

Durheimer, who had been tipped to eventually replace Dr Martin Winterkorn as VW Group CEO, was the driving force behind a project that would see the R18 e-tron quattro racecar form the basis of a limited-edition hypercar for the road.

He told motoring.com.au at this year’s Detroit show that work is already underway to produce a road-going version of the R18 to be positioned above the R8 supercar, to better leverage Audi’s expensive diesel-electric Le Mans program.

Durheimer, 55, reiterated his desire for a diesel-electric hypercar at the Geneva show in March. As we reported two weeks ago, the R18 road car concept might have emerged as soon as this weekend’s Le Mans race.

Yet to be officially approved, in the absence of Durheimer, the future of the R18 customer car program now hangs in the balance.

Durheimer played a key role in the abandonment of the all-electric Audi R8 e-tron supercar program quoting high battery costs. As a result, the next-generation R8 range, due by 2015, is now expected to be crowned by a plug-in hybrid version that will be cheaper and offer a much longer driving range.

Durheimer began his career at BMW then joined Porsche, eventually moved through the ranks to executive level. In his 12 years at Porsche starting in 1999, he championed the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle cause, resulting in PHEVs such as the upcoming Panamera e-Hybrid, the ground-breaking 918 Spyder hypercar due to debut at September’s Frankfurt show and next year’s Cayenne e-Hybrid.

During his nine months at Audi the A2 e-tron project was axed and some reports suggest Durheimer’s reluctance to pursue an all-electric vehicle strategy – in favour of his medium-term plug-in hybrid solution – was a key conflict with Audi management.

According to AutoExpress, Durheimer also wanted to fast-track the first-generation A1 e-tron fitted with a Wankel rotary engine, but was told by Dr Winterkorn it wasn’t financially feasible, leading to further source of friction between the two.

“He wanted innovation and he wanted to move things forward,” said the AutoExpress source.

“But you need a system in place to achieve that and he realised he may have to change the organisation – this wasn’t taken too well by some people.

“He is known as an extremely knowledgeable engineer with an eye for detail. He does whatever it takes and then tells his findings without thinking about the politics. Perhaps it was this lack of politics that didn’t fit too well within Audi.”

Durheimer also openly championed a number of other high-profile projects, including Audi’s lightweight TT Ultra Quattro Concept, the future of which could now also be in doubt.

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