Audi’s CEO says that the brand has never had a stronger product portfolio push. 

During the 2017 Geneva autoshow, Asphalte sat down with Audi’s CEO to discuss the brand’s product plans.

Question: What is your state of preparation for your first mass-produced electric vehicle ?

Answer: We will launch an electric vehicle next year, it is based on our own electric platform. It is SUV-looking because the trend of SUVs for us is very clear so we position the car in that segment. I think we learned a lot in the last few years with the plugin hybrids, also with the test bench of the R8 e-tron which was more for competence building, and now we are starting next year (in 2018) with series production. Brussels, as a plant, is taking steps to be prepared, the workforce has to be trained for high voltage technology. I think we have made good progress.

We have to do a lot of re-building without disturbing the A1 production. For the team, it is not an easy job to do. We are using every window during vacation, winter holidays to prepare the factory step-by-step, because we have to do both: produce the A1 as long as possible and switch to the electric vehicle.

Q: What is your assessment of the market readiness in terms of consumer acceptance, charging infrastructure ? Where do you see that things are taken care of, where do you see that ground still needs to be covered ?

A: Year on year, we will see a better business case for pure electric cars. There are step-by-step improvements in user experience, much more acceptance. Of course we see also Tesla with their products are working well, with one obstacle that they did not earn a single dollar. Nevertheless we see progress in America, California, the New York area, the Boston area. There are areas where people have a certain feeling for this technology. We see big discussions in China because the political framework is getting absolutely prepared. China wants to move toward battery electric vehicle technology. We also see good preparation in Europe. With regards to infrastructure development, there will be a big Volkswagen Group investment in the United States with the Electrify America initiative. We also have cooperations now starting in Europe with a clear plan as to how many high power charging stations we need in which area in 2018, 2019, 2020. Of course, we have seen an increase in the availability of power charging stations, but not high power charging stations. In China, there will be power charging stations every 30 kms on the highways. The field is getting prepared.

Q: Do you have a better picture as to how many electric SUVs you can sell down the road ?

A: We have not decided until now. We have decided to come to the market with a second derivative because we believe that there is more business potential. Our production capacity in Brussels will have to adapt to demand, one shift, two shifts, three shifts. We have organized for that kind of flexibility. We are taking this step-by-step. It is a high tech product, its quality has to be perfect, this is a must. We will ramp up slowly, but our production capacity will be very flexible.