Speculation has floated around for a few years now, and its persistence has been such that no one is surprised to hear that Audi is said to be set on a producing an all-electric successor to its R8 sports car.
Things were lass sure a few years ago, if only because electric models were still rare on the market. Today, they’re so commonplace, the future so clearly theirs, that it‘s a bigger shock to hear of an automaker planning a new gas-engine model. In the case of Audi, the German automaker has already announced that all new models to be launched from 2026 onwards will be all-electric.
According to Autocar, an all-electric Audi R8, assembled on a Porsche platform, will launch in the middle of this decade.
The British outlet, citing sources in the know, indicates that the new car will not be a direct replacement for the R8. It will have a different name, but we can guess that it will be inspired by it. As for the R8 itself, it will bow out next year and a special edition will be in the catalog.
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For the future electric R8, again according to Autocar, Audi will probably opt for one of the two platforms developed by Porsche. One was developed for Porsche's future electric 718, also scheduled for mid-decade.
Another solution would be to use a future SSP platform from the Volkswagen group. That architecture will be used widely by VW, but Porsche has been asked to develop a specific version for high-performance models.
Audi has been talking about an electric R8 since 2009, when we saw the R8 e-tron concept based on the original R8.
We'll see what the company comes up with in due course, but for those who wanted a greener R8, it will be possible within a few years.