Audi aims for 800000 electric and hybrid auto sales in 2025

"The Audi e-tron stands here as a representative of many more electric cars that we will present to you in the coming years", said Stadler, referring to the e-tron Sportback (due in 2019) and subsequent models.

For every third customer to decide in favour of an e-model by the middle of the next decade, there is to be an electrified variant in each model series and by 2025, a lot of them are to be fully electric, with a smaller proportion as plug-in hybrids.

With this, Audi expects it will encourage further electric vehicle sales so that one in three sales are e-models within eight years. Also in electric mobility, we want to become the Number 1 among the premium manufacturers - with full suitability for everyday use, no compromises, top quality and driving pleasure for the customer. "At the same time, we are approaching the climax of the biggest model fireworks in our company's history and are entering the age of electric mobility with the Audi e-tron".

The production version of the Audi e-tron prototype, will for the first time see customers book various functions flexibly online. It will roll out more than 20 electric and hybrid cars by 2025, with pure-electric versions accounting for the largest chunk. This will be followed by the rapid expansion of the portfolio of fully electric cars and plug-in hybrids in each model range.

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"We want to have premium electric cars and digital services that are also attractive in economic terms", he said. Before the end of this year, the two high-end SUVs, the Q8 and the Audi e-tron, will extend the Four Rings' product offering in this prestigious segment. The battery of the SUV will get recharged in barely 30 minutes, by using a high-power charging station. More digital content and services will gradually be made available to passengers.

"Our ambition has always been and will continue to be Vorsprung durch Technik". Audi now makes almost two million vehicles per year, which makes the 800,000 number seem less exorbitant - it would represent about one-third of the company's sales. It has the objectives of tapping into new revenue sources, improving cost structures and accelerating the corporate transformation with regard to new business models. Here we still have a great deal of untapped potential. In total, the brand aims to generate an annual contribution to operating profit of €1 billion with digital services via the myAudi customer portal by the year 2025. That will considerably increase the scope for investment.

To fund its electric-vehicle offensive through to the middle of the next decade, Audi has extended by three years until 2025, an investment program worth about 40 billion euros ($47.42 billion), it said. This also applies to the digitization of production.

"To that end, we are utilizing Group synergies significantly more effectively and are releasing resources for strategy projects with our Action and Transformation Plan".