While a diesel version is still on the table it seems, we’ve just learnt that Audi is ruling out building a plug-in hybrid based on its upcoming all-new R8 supercar.
The primary focus for the car will be to get its conventional petrol engine up to scratch, and not mess around with electrification, despite the fact that it perhaps would have been a fitting car to use such a system – a kind of watered down Porsche 918 hybrid could have been put in place.
Still, CarAdvice did find out from Audi product manager Marie Suzanne Ernst that “In the next generation we will have an electric car on behalf of customers’ needs, which is only available [upon special order]. So it’s not a make of series production, but if a customer wants to have it, he can order it.”
We don’t know if by “an electric car” they mean a completely different model, or something else, though – it could just mean that they are making an all-electric R8, but that it won’t be available for order from your usual Audi showroom.
Audi is trying to forge e-tron into a pillar of their range, like petrol and diesel engines currently are. Prime candidates for first series electrification are the larger cars, the SUVs – the new Q7 could very well debut with one hybrid powerplant, which wouldn’t surprise anybody.
By Andrei Nedelea
Note: Photos below are of the canned R8 e-tron prototype
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