Audi boss says ‘massive demand’ for EVs requires faster infrastructure rollout

Audi has called on governments in Germany and around the world to work faster on expanding the production of renewable energy and rolling out charging infrastructure do deal with the “massive demand” for electric cars.

Speaking to EV Central from the launch of the epoch-shifting, level four autonomous Grandsphere concept, which will hit the road in 2025, possibly badged as an A9 e-Tron, Audi CEO Markus Duesmann said his company currently has a chance to rethink the car entirely.

“The speed of change we are witnessing is enormous and the big topics are electrification and autonomous driving,” Duesmann said.

“The world has moved on, just look at the rules and regulations when it comes to CO2 emissions, and if you look at the social expectations on our company it becomes pretty clear what we have to do (switch the entire Audi fleet to EVs by 2033). 

“I consider it to be our job and our responsibility to have individual mobility CO2 neutral and at the same time to  retain the individual mobility freedom of people, that’s the central question of our time that every car manufacturer must address. 

“The public is clearly recognising that we at Audi are trailblazing, the climate report (of the IPCC) has made it clear that we have no choice but to bring down our carbon emissions across all sectors.

“So we are switching our entire product  line-up across all the segments to electric mobility and that’s a huge change for our company, but I think it’s an even bigger opportunity.

“I am personally absolutely convinced that the challenges of our age can only be solved with technological progress and we at Audi are making our contribution.”

Duesmann applauded the recent decision by the German government to increase the subsidies it provides for private charging points but said more needed to be done, and quickly.

“We need a swifter expansion of renewable energies and an even swifter expansion of the charging infrastructure,” Duesmann added.

“Subsidising private charging points is absolutely sensible, but also the public charging structure needs to be set up quicker because the demand for electric mobility from customers is huge, it’s massive.

“In the first half of this year  we’ve sold 18,000 (EV) units, that’s more than twice what we’d sold in the same period last year.”

Duesmann believes the other huge change that will come to cars, particularly as they become “adventure spaces” in which people relax, shop, video game and do just about everything but drive, thanks to Level 4 autonomy, is digitisation.

He says the car business will have to take a holistic approach to different usage cases for cars – or mobility devices as they’re increasingly being called.

“It’s not just about the car, it’s the entire ecosystem surrounding electric cars; charging, navigating, paying for services, providing onboard services, and a lot more,” he says.

Audi’s head of technical development, Oliver Hoffman, added that Grandsphere shows what the very near future of electric vehicles will be like.

“The interior becomes a living environment so the car can be an office or a movie theatre, it can offer shopping and gaming, or just relaxation, like at home,” Hoffman said.

“We’re now really more like a tech company than a classic car developer.”