audi r8 v10 plus 8888
Michael Taylor16 Mar 2018
NEWS

Audi's new flagship EV kills off R8 supercar

All-electric e-tron GT four-door could replace Audi’s top-shelf sports car

There was good news and bad news from Audi CEO Rupert Stadler at the company’s annual conference yesterday.

The good news, obviously, was confirmation and a teaser shot of the all-electric e-tron GT four-door coupe coming in 2020.

The bad news? The e-tron GT’s arrival almost certainly marks the end of the road for Audi Sport’s R8 V10 supercar, with no approved development program for a third-generation car.

The e-tron GT has been dealt with here already, so we won’t dwell on that, but there are some obvious pointers in that article and some of Stadler’s statements that Audi clearly hoped would be glossed over.

Firstly, he said this: “This highly emotive spearhead from Audi Sport is to be produced at our Böllinger Höfe plant near Neckarsulm as of 2020.”

Audi Sport (which we used to call Quattro GmbH) itself tweeted that the e-tron GT would be the “electrified future of Audi Sport” and would be the “spearhead of Audi Sport by the year 2020.”

audi r8 v10 plus 9999

Now, there’s only one hiccup with that. The R8 is the current spearhead of the Audi Sport brand, so where does that leave the R8?

The answer is: pretty much nowhere.

The Böllinger Höfe plant near Neckarsulm was purpose built to hand-craft the R8 and significant chunks of the Lamborghini Gallardo and Huracan, with which the first and second generations shared their key pieces.

Böllinger Höfe is a small, boutique production plant and it is simply not big enough to house two production lines building two very different cars with two incredibly different powertrains.

Handing the e-tron GT to Böllinger Höfe has been seen by insiders as Audi throwing a bone to the unions who had been jumping up and down, knowing the R8 wouldn’t be replaced in a post 2020 world full of the EU7 emissions regulations.

While a V6 turbo R8 is on the way (hence Audi Sport has been using the R8 V10 moniker on conventional R8s lately), the bulk of R8s built so far have been V10s. Big, naturally aspirated V10s that make wonderful noises, have brilliant throttle response and are thirsty.

The rest of the sports car and supercar worlds have already moved on to turbocharging, while electric boosting is no longer over the horizon.

There’s another reason the R8 is in trouble, too. Audi Sport was initially involved (deeply) in engineering negotiations with Porsche to share a common architecture for the third-generation R8.

It is understood that Audi is now only involved as the parent company to Lamborghini, which has taken over ongoing negotiations with engineering discussions with Porsche.

Sources in Stuttgart insist the Huracan’s successor will share its underpinnings and part of its powertrain with a new mid-engined two-seater Porsche, which will sit above the next-generation 911 and below whatever hypercar succeeds the 918 Spyder.

When asked specifically about the future of the R8, Stadler today insisted there had been “no decision”, which is an odd thing to say about a car that would need to be ready in just two years.

The only real alternative is that its production and assembly is moved to Lamborghini’s plant in Sant’Agata Bolognese in Italy, where its workers already know how to bolt most of it together. The downside is those same workers will probably be flat out knocking up Uruses.

Audi Sport built 1888 R8 coupes and 1291 convertibles last year, while Lamborghini managed 2642 Huracans, including 1822 hard-top coupes.

Next week the rear-wheel drive R8 RWS joins Audi Australia’s R8 line-up.

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Written byMichael Taylor
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