Audi Wants To Bring Back Its All-Electric Supercar

Jul. 06, 2017 5:30 PM ET by Jay Traugott Rumor / 2 Comments

Just don't expect it to be R8-based.

Way back in 2009, Audi revealed its first-ever R8 e-tron electric supercar. After making a pretty big deal out of it, in 2013 the project was killed off by Audi's then development chief Wolfgang Durheimer, who's now running Bentley and Bugatti. Durheimer's reasoning, at the time, was that battery technology wasn't good enough for supercar performance. His successor, the now retired Ulrich Hackenberg, revived the e-tron project and ordered a limited production run, but nothing mainstream. Then the R8 e-tron was killed again in 2016.

According to Autocar, Audi's new R&D boss, Peter Mertens, hinted that an all-electric supercar is being considered once again. "You can very well imagine that at some point in time we will have an electric supercar," Mertens said at a Formula E race earlier in the month. Reviving the halo electric supercar project is still in an early development stage, but Mertens is determined to see things through. But unlike the R8 e-tron, Mertens believes an Audi EV supercar must have its own unique design, instead of being an R8 spin-off. Fortunately, fellow VW Group brand Porsche is fast-tracking development for a production version of its Mission E concept, and therefore Audi could be provided with various forms of technical support.

Mertens further added that his ideal EV supercar would feature 800V electrics instead of the 400V system in other Audi models. No time frame was given, but with EV technology now where it needs to be, a reborn Audi EV supercar sounds like a no-brainer.

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Audi Wants To Bring Back Its All-Electric Supercar

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