At Audi Group’s most latest Annual General Meeting, Audi Board of Management chair Bram Schot positioned the final nails in two distinctive sports automobile coffins, efficaciously confirming the end of the Audi TT as well as that of the Audi R8.
While Schot stated particularly at some point of his address that the TT would be replaced by an electric powered sports activities vehicle, but left the destiny of the R8’s lineage (its successor) instead indistinct.
He stated the reasoning for culling Audi’s variety of sports activities vehicles changed into because of its involvement in “too many tasks for numerous years,” and that those cars fall beneath the banner of “things within the destiny that [Audi] not [does].”
2018 Audi TT RS
“This manner less complexity in new fashions, much less complexity in our range as a whole. We have eliminated almost one 0.33 of our engine-transmission combos.
“Focusing additionally includes leaving matters out — the Audi TT, as an instance. For two a long time, we’ve had this younger, emotive sports activities vehicle in our product range: as a couple and as a roadster.
“In some years, we can update the TT with a brand new emotive version in the equal fee range: with an electrically powered vehicle.”
What will this car be? MOTOR’s European editor Georg Kacher may have already exposed the primary steps on this from a previous document filed concerning the Audi PB18 e-Tron concept closing 12 months.
A new all-electric powered platform is reportedly being co-advanced among Porsche and Audi, with the groundwork to update the entry-level Porsche models also on the cards, even though that’s simplest a possibility.
2019 Audi R8 V10
“The first together conceived brazenly sporty BEV may be a compact -seater set to in the end replace each the Audi TT and the 718 Boxster/Cayman. The timing of this venture is still unclear,” Kacher wrote.
“Sources suggest that there can be one more redecorate of the traditional fashions before the silent sports motors put in an look in 2025/26.”
The timing of this may have advanced since ultimate yr’s file, as electric vehicles become greater normal and producers pour extra coin into their development.
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But it’s the R8 which has been forgotten on this ‘goodbye TT’ frenzy.
While Schott says the substitute for the R8 ‘might not’ have a combustion engine, Kacher formerly reported that there received’t even be an instantaneous substitute for the four-ringed supercar.
2019 Audi R8 V10 the front
Back to Schot, who continues from his factor approximately the TT alternative: “As I stated, focusing also means leaving out. For instance, the R8 sports vehicle.
“Do we want a successor with a combustion engine? Does this in shape in with our imaginative and prescient? The discussion [about Audi’s future] will deliver us a solution to that.”
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According to Kacher, the R8’s days are numbered, which implies Audi is probably very close to locating that answer Schot mentioned.
“There will be no direct substitute for the gradual-promoting R8 which is going to be phased out in late 2020 while the new Huracán [successor], based at the promising carbon-fibre monofuselage matrix arrives,” Kacher wrote.
So is Audi changing plans behind the scenes? Our man Kacher isn’t often incorrect. However, Schot’s words point to an electric destiny for Audi plenty earlier than we at the beginning concept.
