Despite a slowdown in the growth of sales of electric vehicles, Audi is committed to its plan to launch its final model equipped with an internal-combustion engine in 2026, CEO Gernot Döllner said on Tuesday while announcing the company’s financial results for 2023.
The final model will stay in production until 2033, after which Audi will become a fully electric brand. That date isn’t fixed, though. Döllner said Audi has some flexibility in case market conditions change.
“We’re fully committed to electric mobility,” he said. “But if there are waves or fluctuations in the transition we can react to them.”
The plan was first announced in 2021 by former CEO Markus Duesmann, who Döllner replaced last year. Other automakers announced similar plans at the time but are backing off and will instead continue to offer vehicles equipped with internal-combustion engines well into the next decade, such as Mercedes-Benz.
Döllner on Tuesday also confirmed plans to launch more than 20 new or updated vehicles between now and the end of 2025, including the new 2025 Q6 E-Tron electric compact crossover which was revealed overnight. Also in the pipeline is the updated 2025 A3, a new 2025 A6 E-Tron, and redesigned versions of the A5 and Q5 which should also arrive as 2025 models.
The new A5 and Q5 will ride on a new platform for internal-combustion cars called the PPC (Premium Platform Combustion). It’s a counterpart to the PPE (Premium Platform Electric) that underpins the Q6 E-Tron and its Porsche Macan corporate cousin, and will debut in the new A5 and Q5 models in the second half of the year.
