Local brand boss certain Kiwis would be keen on a high-tech flagship that, in concept form, envisages as an elegant luxury autonomous tourer.

TWO kinds of sports utility wagon, two versions of a fastback sedan, a volume-generating crossover coming … and, then, it gets really interesting.

In four years Audi’s electric car push will reach a ‘grand’ scale – and New Zealand will stand ready to benefit when that occurs.

That’s the view from Audi New Zealand’s general manager Dean Sheed in respect to the latest, yet to be fully revealed, electric car from Ingolstadt.

 The local boss is highly intrigued by the Grand Sphere, a concept that will preview the flagship expected in 2025 that not only elevates electric driving to a new level but also delivers ground-breaking digitisation and autonomous driving.

Logically, it will be Audi’s foil to other luxury EV’s like the Mercedes Benz EQS expected to arrive in NZ at the end of this year, plus yet-to-be-announced BMW i7. The electric Jaguar XJ might have also been a rival had it not been killed off.

How will it position? Expensively, of course – likely above the priciest e-tron here now, the $273,500 RS e-tron GT. But it’ll earn its keep.

“I think the philosophy behind Grand Sphere is that is the first sibling of a family of large luxury cars,” said Sheed. “What Audi is trying to do is redefine the luxury segment. 

In normal times – that, is, in the days before Covid-19 kyboshed international travel – he would likely have already been to Audi headquarters in Germany to see this product, which started as a design proposal three years ago.

As is, his comment suggests Audi is already spreading more information within brand circles than is being aired in public.

What we know so far is that the large sedan shown only in shadowy form images is the first of three Sphere concepts and will be fully revealed at the Munich motor show, in the first week of September. The others are cited as a high-performance car and a SUV.

It previews the production version of the ‘land jet’ that Audi has been developing through its high-tech Project Artemis, which was established with a focus on the development of software and platforms for future EVs capable of autonomous driving.

It will be the first machine to use the Volkswagen Group’s new SSP platform for EVs, which fuses elements from the mass-market MEB and the performance focused PPE underpinning used by the GT (and Taycan, its Porsche equivalent).

Ingolstadt proposes Grand Sphere as an elegant luxury autonomous tourer, ideal for longer trips with the primary focus on comfort. It says that whereas the second row of many luxury vehicles provides a business-class experience, Grand Sphere also favours that experience the front as well.

 Audi has been given leadership to develop not just its own car but also a whole range of vehicles, probably destined to represent under other brands – Bentley and Porsche being obvious favourites.

“There will be an Audi version or versions and there will likely be other versions as well,” Sheed contends.

“I personally don’t think it (the Audi) will be a sedan. I think it will be another body style. And it will be a new interpretation of luxury.”

It will also use the VW Group’s new VW. OS operating system software and will be designed to offer level-four autonomy – meaning, simply, that it will have capability to self-drive in certain, prescribed environments. Mainly the motorway, from what’s been suggested so far.

Is that kind of car conceivable for NZ and are ready for it? Sheed is enthusiastic.

“I think we are … my money would be on that design being a very progressive car. It’s electrified, it’s digitised, it’s autonomous … but I think the country will be ready for that.

Audi ‘s going hard with electric and NZ is one market moving fast: After all, the brand’s first EV, a plug-in hybrid A3, only came on sale in 2015, a year after left hand drive examples of German plates were trialled here. Its first full electric only arrived in 2019; that’s the e-tron SUV. That model represents mainly in most-powerful 55 form - a more budget 50 being short-lived - first in regular wagon shape and, more recently as a more rakish Sportback. Several hundred have been sold.

As of this week, the local arm is now obviously also going hard in the $194,500 GT and $273,500 GT RS performance passenger cars. It’s still to formally hit the showroom but 60 have already been accounted for, with even take up across the two levels.

Another battery-fed hotshot lands later this year with the S version of the e-Tron Sportback that has been here for less than a year. The S stands out by being the first Audi EV with three electric motors - one on the front axle, two on the back. It’s going to offer less power but more torque - a thumping 973Nm - than the GT cars and, though not as fast off the line (0-100kmh in 5.1 seconds) will look tasty at $189,900.

E-tron will impact accelerate all the more when representing, though lamentably perhaps not before the end of 2022 at best, in the Q4.

MEB is an underpinning designed specifically for Audi, Skoda, SEAT and VW mass market models, so conceivably Q4 will be the only e-tron designated to sit at the budget end of the premium sector; as close as any Audi can be to becoming a volume-chaser.  Sheed is confident, already, it will rise to become his “best-selling car.” He is anxious to have Q4 ASAP but says at the moment the brand wants to concentrate on Europe and the United Kingdom.

And there’s also another model, so far seen as a concept of the same styling ilk as the A6/A7 medium-large cars, but with engineering flexibility to present in the next-sized down A4/A5 bracket.

Remarkably, much more is in the wings. Audi chief of design Marc Lichte (above) recently revealed 40 mainly EV projects are now under way in his studio.

 It’s that pace of change which has Sheed thinking that his marque could well stand to be considered an ‘electric car brand’ by Kiwis by 2025 or 2026, regardless that it will also quite probably still have a number of internal combustion engine (ICE) models still in circulation then.

Lichte’s spin on Grand Sphere is that it will be seen as a radical design step driven by the possibilities created through advanced driver assistance systems.

“The world is changing, and especially the automobile,” he said in a recent interview.

  “We’re talking about level-four autonomous technology (in which cars can drive unsupervised in certain conditions, particularly on highways that have the required infrastructure). This is a complete game-changer. The transformation is a lot bigger than from ICE to EV.”