- Audi’s CEO says the brand is planning a new electric sports car
- The company intends to use the car to signal a new design direction
Audi will unveil a new electric sports car this fall, positioned as a new design direction for the brand, according to a German newspaper.
The 1998 launch of the Audi TT was a pivotal moment in brand history, helping to set the design direction for the company’s most recent period of growth.
Audi CEO Gernot Döllner told the publication Bild that the company considers the forthcoming car a “TT moment 2.0.”
Most years since the turn of the century, Audi has sold a pair of high-performance sports cars – the more attainable TT and the R8 supercar. Both have been off the market in recent years, leaving the brand without a halo car to bet its reputation on.
The electric e-tron GT is the closest thing today, but shares most of its architecture with the better-selling Porsche Taycan and hasn’t had the cultural impact of a TT or an R8.
Döllner tells Bild that the new car will be “not a TT, not an R8, but something in between,” and “an identity builder” for Audi. He calls it “a highly emotional sports car.”
That’s all we have to go on for now. But Döllner says the public can expect to see the car, in concept form, at September’s Munich Motor Show.