Audi, a part of the Volkswagen group is one of the major luxury brands from Germany. The company is known for its innovative approach and fun to drive cars. Keeping up with the trends in the automotive industry, Audi has been working at a feverish pace to develop sustainable mobility. Their efforts have gone mainly into developing pure battery electric vehicles as well a plug-in hybrid cars. Recently, the company has released its vision and roadmap for developing sustainable personal mobility.
Audi aims to rely on four platforms for their pure electric vehicles. These four electric specific platforms will cover the entire range of segments Audi caters for. Audi aims to offer several electric models based on these platforms by the year 2025. Meanwhile, during the transition period, the company intends to offer increasing numbers of plug-in hybrid models based on their existing range of cars. This process has already started with 2019. By 2025, Audi aims to have 30 electrified models, out of which 20 would be pure electric while the rest would be plug-in hybrids.
The plug-in hybrid models would have a combined TFSI petrol engine and electric motor propulsion. There would be lower capacity Li-ion batteries powering these cars which would be charged using the TFSI petrol engine and will provide pure electric range to these cars while they are driven in cities or residential areas. In 2019 itself Audi has offered/ is offering plug-in hybrid models for the A7 Sportback, A8 sedans and Q5 and Q7 SUVs.
As far as pure electric vehicles are concerned, Audi has already launched the e-tron SUV which is based on the Longitudinal Modular Platform called (MLB evo). The next car which is being developed along with Porsche and which is expected to be launched in 2020 is the e-tron GT sports car. This car will be built on the J1 platform. The third all electric platform being developed is the Modular Electrification Platform (MEB), on which several compact and medium sized cars would be based on. The first model based on this platform is expected to be the Q4 e-tron. The MEB platform has been developed as a common platform by Volkswagen to be used by all its member companies. Finally, the fourth and the largest platform will be the PPE of Premium Platform Electric which will be used to develop full size luxury electric models. This platform will have segment specific layout which will allow Audi to install the various high end technologies offered with these cars.
Audi plans to invest around Euro 14 Billion into developing electric mobility by the year 2023. They shall be investing this money in not only technology but also promoting its electrification strategy in the areas of brand strategy, sales organization, production and personnel qualification.
The Transport Journal 