Audi Is Giving Its Future EVs Normal Names, Finally
That means the A5 and A7 Sportback models won’t have internal combustion-powered successors, too.
Audi’s plan to remove confusion between their internal combustion- and electric-powered vehicles is odd. It's even, too. That’s because the German automaker announced last week that it would move Audi cars with gas or diesel engines to odd-numbered names and the all-electric vehicles to even numbers. German newspaper Stimme first reported the change.
That jibes with previous reports that the A3 would become an all-electric EV—presumably becoming a new A4—and that the current A4 sedan in its next life will be called the A5. The newspaper also reported that the next-generation A6 will be called the A7 but didn’t say whether there would be a mid-size electric sedan to take up the A6 flag in the future. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for their swoopy sedans like the A5 Sportback and A7 in the future, as the newspaper reports there won’t be direct successors as internal combustion-powered models. It’s EV power or bust for those stylish models, apparently.
Audi’s telegraphed the move a little by appending their current crop of upcoming all-electric crossovers with the “E-tron” moniker, instead of calling them all "E-tron S" or similar, which it has done in the past. The original E-tron is now the Q8 E-tron, which is sold alongside the Q4 E-tron. The next in the family will be the Q6 E-tron. It’s not clear what the E-tron GT would be called, although it’ll almost certainly have an even number.
Audi’s sentiment is shared with other German automakers, too. Mercedes-Benz said it would start to back away from its EQ designation with its electric vehicles as early as next year, incorporating those powertrains into the regular naming convention. BMW may also be considering a change in its naming structure, the automaker recently patented a slew of names for its models, too.
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