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04/12/2018

Almost $16 Billion To Be Invested By Audi In Next Gen Cars




Almost $16 Billion To Be Invested By Audi In Next Gen Cars
While it can be a very desirable concept to see conventional engine powered cars being replaced by the next generation electric vehicles, it5 also costs a lot of money. And this has been proved to the correct once again – this time by Audi which it has agreed to spend on development of the next generation cars.
 
On Tuesday, the German luxury car maker announced its intention of expending about 14 billion euro to about $16 billion, on the development of the next generation cars by 2023. The company plans to invest heavily in areas such as electrification, mobility, digitalization and autonomous technology development. And in addition financing the production costs, it would also be used to finances expenses towards construction of the appropriate factories and for talents that would be entrusted with the role of making the project a success.
 
In terms of development of electric vehicles, Audi plans to manufacture and offer the market at least 20 variations or models of electric vehicles – which would be shared equally between completely electrified vehicles and hybrid ones. The first possible model would be the E-Tron SUV. A portion of the money would also be diverted to development of Audi's new PPE electric vehicle architecture that it is manufacturing in partnership with Porsche.
 
In the realm of digitalization, Audi plans to invest in enhancing its connected services, such as over-the-air updates which would allow the company to add on features hat were not included at the time of manufacturing.
 
In terms of autonomy and autonomous vehicles, Audi already possess what it calls its Traffic Jam Pilot where the use a lidar sensor in a production is being made for the first time.
 
Audi however did not provide much detail about its other plans in the mobility space.
 
"This planning round bears a clear signature: We are taking a very systematic approach to electric mobility and will be much more focused in future," said Bram Schot, interim board chairman at Audi, in a statement. "We are consistently prioritizing our resources for future-oriented products and services that are highly attractive and relevant to the market."
 
According to estimates, the $16 billion apportioned for the various next generation vehicles project would account for about a third of the total expenditure of the company scheduled for the next five years. At the same time, Audi is also getting ready to implement its Audi Transformation Plan according to which the company would bring down complexity in product portfolio and boil down issues to focus completely on those that would be relevant in the future.
 
And the company is also thinking about the present time and plans to launch three new new-generation volume electric cars. The e-tron crossover is the first of them which is being rolled out currently in Europe. It would launch the e-tron Sportback late next year and a conceptual glimpse of the third model - the e-tron GT, was offered by the company at the Los Angeles Auto Show last month.
 
(Source:www.autonews.com)

Christopher J. Mitchell

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