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Audi Has Gone Three Years Without Any Real Big News
Since the Q4, Audi hasn’t had anything new to bring to the market. But the coming months promise to be particularly busy. The return of the brand to the rings?
Audi’s last email alert in our inbox concerned Q2 with the update of the infotainment system. This means the last few months have been rather calm on the Ingolstadt side, which has not experienced a major launch since the end of 2021. This was at the time of the arrival of the Q4 e-tron, a compact SUV that was a beacon of hope for Audi, which was then beginning its electric transformation. But sales remain limited for the moment in Europe. Apart from the Q4, Audi has only launched restylings and updates of already existing models.
Three years is a long time at a time when everything must be renewed within the hour. Automotive executives are now putting pressure on their teams to accelerate the pace of vehicle generation changes, both upstream in development and at the end of the production process. Did Audi miss the train? Not really. What particularly weighed down Audi was this delay of almost two years for the Q6 e-tron, weighed down by internal concerns within the Volkswagen group against a backdrop of platform and software design. The manufacturer with the rings was therefore in a period that we would describe as hollow, but which will give way to a wave of new products.
Audi has decided to review the hierarchy of its ranges: even numbers for electrified models, odd numbers for thermal ones. The Audi A4 will therefore become the A5 to make way for a future A4 e-tron, which we will not discover until 2026, which will have so much to face with the Mercedes EQA sedan and BMW Neue Klasse. The current thermal Q8 will become the Q7 Sportback, while the Q7 will be entitled to a restyling to last until 2026, just like the A3, which will have its traditional mid-term update. Another model that will change its name is the A6, which will become the A7 in 2025 with its Sportback and Avant versions.
But the big news will be the brand new “6” range with the A6 e-tron Avant and Sportback, accompanied by the Q6 e-tron. These models will be based on the PPE platform shared with Porsche, which already uses it on the all-new electric Macan.
