The automaker has announced plans for all new models to be electric vehicles by 2026 and phase out internal combustion models by 2033. Here’s how it will get there.
German luxury automaker Audi has announced plans to launch all-electric models to the global market by 2026. The company will also gradually phase out production of its internal combustion models by 2033. The automaker is now preparing its global facilities to produce all-electric cars.
Instead of building entirely new electric vehicle production facilities, Audi’s strategy is to build on its existing global production network.
“We don’t want any standalone lighthouse projects on greenfield sites. Instead, we are investing in our existing plants so they end up being just as efficient and flexible as newly built production sites or greenfield plants,” says Audi Board Member for Production and Logistics Gerd Walker in a release. “The path Audi is taking conserves resources and accelerates our transformation to a provider of sustainable premium mobility.”
Gerd Walker, Member of the Board of Management of AUDI AG for Production and Logistics (Source: Audi AG)
The aim is to make its manufacturing flexible and resilient to ensure it will be future-proof for the long term. To develop this strategy, Audi focused on a few key question: What does society expect from us? What do our customers demand? What are the expectations of stakeholders? What will our employees need in the future? The resulting approach is something the car manufacturer dubs the 360factory, which places equal emphasis on cost-effectiveness, sustainability, flexibility and attractiveness.
The road to e-mobility
By the end of the decade, Audi says it will be making electric-drive models at all of its production sites worldwide, and it’s setting aside 500 million euros to train and upskill its current global workforce. Two sites—Böllinger Höfe in Heilbronn, Germany and Brussels—are already producing all-electric vehicles. Starting next year, the Audi Q6 e-tron will be the first all-electric model to roll off the production line in Ingolstadt, Germany, with gradual changeover to EV production at its Neckarsulm, Germany; Győr, Hungary; and San José Chiapa, Mexico facilties.
In 2029, Audi says all production sites will be producing at least one all-electric vehicle model. Depending on local conditions, production of the remaining combustion models will be gradually phased out over the next decade.
New plants will only be built where additional capacity is needed. For example, Audi and its partner FAW are currently building a site in Changchun (China) where models based on the PPE (Premium Platform Electric) technology platform will be locally produced. With construction set to finish by the end of 2024, this will be the first automotive plant in China where only all-electric Audi models roll off the line.
Transformation for increased productivity
Once it is equipped for the future, Audi’s production network is intended to be economical, sustainable, and flexible. The company has set four central goals with ambitious key figures:
Cut annual factory costs in half by 2033
To achieve this, it hoped to reduce the complexity of its vehicles where it does not benefit the customer. Vehicle development will take a streamlined production process into account from the design stage.
Continued production digitalization
Audi’s Edge Cloud 4 Production solution will use local servers, replacing expensive industrial PCs, reducing IT efforts such as software rollouts and operating system changes.
Cycle-independent modular assembly
This will simplify work with high product variability. Virtual assembly planning saves material resources and makes innovative, flexible collaboration possible across locations.
Flexible, sustainable production
To respond more flexibly to fluctuations in customer demand or production program, Audi will make its manufacturing processes even more flexible, restructuring its product and production. To this end, the new Audi Q6 e-tron, for example, will initially be made in Ingolstadt on the same line as the Audi A4 and A5 internal combustion sedans. The electric models will then gradually replace the combustion cars on the lines.
Audi has also been pursuing its Mission:Zero environmental program to reduce its ecological footprint related to production and logistics since 2019. The program’s central goal is to make all Audi production sites worldwide net carbon neutral by 2025, with the plants in Brussels, Győr and Böllinger Höfe having already been converted. The environmental program also addresses the areas of resource and water efficiency as well as the protection and preservation of biodiversity. For example, Audi plans to halve today’s ecologically weighted water consumption value in its production sites by 2035. In 2018, Audi México became the world’s first premium manufacturer to produce cars completely wastewater-free. At the Neckarsulm site, a water cycle was set up in a pilot project between the factory and the neighboring municipal wastewater treatment plant, which will reduce the demand for freshwater by more than 70 percent.
Audi is now setting more ambitious sustainability targets related to production. By 2030, it aims to cut its absolute environmental impact in the areas of primary energy consumption. Power plant emissions, CO2 equivalents, air pollutants, local water risk, and wastewater and waste volumes will all be cut in half compared to 2018 results. Important steps to achieve this goal include generating renewable energy in-house and using innovative technologies to create more circular value chains where resources are used in closed cycles.
As Audi’s first fully comprehensive 360factory, the Ingolstadt plant will serve as a blueprint for the transformation of the company’s large-scale production facilities worldwide. The other sites will tackle the transformation step-by-step. “We still have a long way to go,” says Walker. “But the direction we’re headed in and the steps to get there are clear.”
