Audi has long promised that from 2033 the brand will only build electric cars. Now the new managing director Gernot Döllner is tearing that ceiling to pieces.
– We have to adapt to some extent adapt it. We are flexible
This is what Audi's new managing director Gernot Döllner says about the ceiling the brand has given to only build electric cars by 2033 at the latest.
In doing so, Döllner, who has not even held the chief position at Audi for a year, tears the brand's most significant ceilings ever in the middle.
It happened in an interview with Top Gear .
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The ceiling, which Audi still advertises on its own website, was given as late as December 2022. But a lot has happened in a year and a half. Also in Ingolstadt, where Audi has headquarters.
In fact, Döllner admits that the ceiling given by his predecessor Markus Duesmann no longer applies at all. It may be connected to the fact that the electric cars do not have as much speed with the motorists as Audi and many other brands thought.
For Audi, this means looking at the possibility of scrapping an entire electric car model in time. Something that could mean that the brand's factory in Belgium closes down completely. Right now it is 'only' quiet. Read more about it here.
– We are flexible. But you have to stick to your strategy, because a model cycle is seven years. In 2027-28 we will have the highest number of models ever. Almost twice as many as we have now, says Gernot Döllner to Top Gear.
Although there is no longer a year on it, Döllner is adamant that the brand he heads will only build electric cars in the long term.
– The legislation now says that the car must be locally emission-free, and even e-fuels do not help because it is produced locally emission-free.
– If we as humanity think we need a change in CO2 – and just look at the weather, we need to change – the only way forward is battery-powered cars. The Paris Agreement states that we must achieve CO2 neutrality by 2050, says the director.
Audi is far from the first car brand to trash statements about only building electric cars. In the past, both Mercedes, Ford, Genesis, Volkswagen, Cadillac and Jeep have braked similar ceilings.
Other car brands, such as Renault, have directly asked the EU Commission to reconsider the ban on combustion engines in new cars from 2035. Read more about it here .
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