At Audi, the electric future makes room for hybrids

The best laid plans, especially when it comes to automakers anticipating the electric vehicle future, are sometimes mislaid.

At Audi, the luxury division of the Volkswagen group, the product planners were all in and gaga about EVs a couple of years ago; gasoline motors (and diesels in Europe) were pretty much an afterthought in discussions about what to expect from their plants by 2030 and beyond.

But folks like Audi CEO Gernot Döllner have the option to “revise” their thinking. Therefore, enter the hybrid phase, now quite fashionable, and cue again the lately overused concept of “transition.”

“Within the Volkswagen Group, we recognized early on that plug-in hybrids were a relevant project technology, and now we see that the bridge is longer than we initially thought,” Dollner told reporters recently, as reported by Autocar.

That “bridge” was to extend to 2033, when the Bavarians would build only new electric models. That’s still the goal, but the phase-out of internal combustion (ICE) motors will take “longer than initially thought.” They delivered the same message over at Porsche on Monday..

Dollner and his team have adopted the savvy attitude that plug-in hybrids essentially are the “bridge,” “especially becoming important in China and North America. The positive message is that we are flexible.”

Because hybrids, like those from Japanese companies like Honda and Toyota, have been hot, saleable properties lately, several firms, including Mercedes, BMW and Kia have rearranged their futures to emphasize hybrid power. Earlier this year, Ford’s CEO Jim Farley identified the hybrid movement as a valid alternative to other power platforms. “We should stop talking about it as transitional technology,” Farley told reporters at a conference in May. “Many of our hybrids in the U.S. are now more profitable than their non-hybrid equivalent,”

Audi has engineered a new family of combustion engines for its next generation of PHEV models, which will be able to travel up to 62 miles on electric power thanks to a significantly larger battery. It recently introduced the new A5, its replacement for the A4 sedan. Both A5 body styles ride on a new architecture called Premium Platform Combustion (PPC) that will likely underpin additional models later on.

Döllner has said that Audi’s “first-generation” electric car lineup will be complete in 2027. It will soon reveal the new A6 E-Tron ahead of a launch later this year.