Goes beyond announcement made just a few months ago
Last ICE launch will happen in 2025
Audi has just put an end date on the internal combustion engine. Just weeks after announcing its last new ICE global launch would happen in 2025, Audi has announced that it will end internal combustion engine production by 2033.
The new strategy is called Vorsprung 2030, moving forward on the brand’s current slogan Vorsprung durch Technik (Progress through Technology). Audi says its board has spent the last few months forming the strategy, which includes what the company is calling a “firm date now set for the company’s transition to e-mobility.”
“We view ourselves as a company that guarantees the freedom and individual mobility of our customers,” said Audi CEO Markus Duesmann. “We don’t simply develop technology for its own sake. It must be consequential and effective in keeping the world moving.”
Along with 500 Audi employees from across the company hierarchy and around the globe, Audi chief strategist Silja Pieh analyzed more than 600 global mobility trends the company thought could become relevant by 2030. Based on that, it’s decided to make the shift from combustion to electric and as well move toward autonomous vehicles. A shift that will change how the company operates, not just the vehicles it builds.
The automaker has said previously it expected to phase out ICE, but only in certain markets. This announcement did not exclude any markets, making it a much more final decision. “Combustion engine production to end in 2033.”
Audi said that it will work hard to maintain the feel of the brand moving into electric mobility. To define what that means, it is diving into technical details like acoustics, steering angle, and even the amount of hand torque the driver needs to apply. “We need to give our products a clear, unmistakable DNA. In the future, we will be very explicit in our definition of what driving an Audi should feel like. This also applies to highly automated driving, by the way,” said tech development board member Oliver Hoffmann.
Along the way, expect cool stuff to come from Audi’s innovation unit called Denkwerkstatt. The company calls that division its “speedboat” used to lead innovation. Like an internal startup hub. The group creates and evaluates new ideas in weeks rather than years.
