New Audi design direction detailed

The next generation of Audi models heading to showrooms this decade will adopt a bold new design inspired by the German prestige brand’s iconic logo of four interlocking rings.

Previewed by the Audi Grandsphere concept unveiled ahead of the Munich motor show this week, the front-end of upcoming new Audi models is expected to retain its bold single-frame grille design, albeit in a massaged form.

However, the luxury car-maker is set to wave goodbye to its trademark angular LED lighting signatures.

That means everything from the Audi A4 to the Q7 and the next R8 will get profoundly new visuals.

“We’ve worked closely with our designers and we’ve created something very fresh,” said Audi exterior designer Amar Vaya.

“It’s a graphical take on the classical DRLs [daytime running lights] and in this case what we’ve done is taken the graphic from the rings, cut them, and there is your perfect ‘eye’ that sits on the Audi face.”

As we have reported, Audi has already confirmed that the Grandsphere concept previews a new flagship sedan that is likely to succeed the Audi A8 by 2025.

The concept’s new-look OLED headlights fill out ultra-slim headlight clusters and, by the time it reaches production, should offer a range of custom configurations and even animations that will adapt to conditions and driving modes.

Vaya confirmed to carsales that the Grandsphere’s new look would be rolled out across the entire Audi portfolio.

“[With] the new Audi eye, we wanted to create one signature eye that’s on all of our cars,” he said.

“You’d recognise from the Q2 to the A8 one single look of the [current] eyes, so that’s why we decided to do a new signature and, yes, it will be on all of our upcoming cars.

“And we’re going to combine it with some other features so every car will have its own little tweak, let’s say, to give it uniqueness as well.”

The little “tweaks” are understood to be more than just subtle design differences and are expected to manifest in the form of customisable, interactive OLED daytime running lights, evolving the ‘dancing’ OLED brake lights of updated SUVs like the Audi Q5.

The tail-light designs of upcoming Audi vehicles are also set to adopt the new ethos.

“If you come round the rear, you see a little bit more of our new Audi eye which we reflect perfectly from the front to the rear,” explained Vaya.

Audi has made no secret of the fact the massive 5350mm-long Grandsphere concept would help define its evolving design DNA across the next decade.

“The Grandsphere is clearly much closer to reality [than the other concepts], and we’ve already communicated that around about the year 2025 we want to have a new vehicle positioned in the upper [large] segment, the luxury segment,” said Audi’s head of exterior design, Philip Römers.

The new design direction coincides with Audi’s EV push, which will eventually see the brand kill off all combustion-engined vehicles by 2032.

Audi currently sells a handful of e-tron electric vehicles but says it will introduce at least 20 new pure-electric models before 2025, many of them based on the PPE premium EV platform co-developed with Porsche.

The Audi Grandsphere concept is powered by twin electric motors (530kW/960Nm) that combine to deliver potent sports car-like performance, along with a 750km WLTP-verified cruising range.

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