Audi to launch three electric vehicles by 2020: CEO
The Volkswagen Group is committed to launching as many as 30 electric cars by the end of 2025, many of which will be sold under the Audi brand, which will have its first electric car, a mid-sized SUV, on sale in 2018. After this launch, Audi will debut more EVs in quick succession, according to CEO Rupert Stadler, amounting to at least three electric models by 2020. Furthermore, Stadler confirmed that between 25-30% of the total vehicles sold by Audi will be electric by 2025.

Audi's CEO, Rupert Stadler, has announced in an interview with a German newspaper that his company will have three pure-electric cars on sale by 2020 and, just five years later, Audi's family of EVs will account for between 25 to 30 per cent of its sales.

Speaking to Heilbronner Stimme, Stadler said Audi had switched to focus its resources on developing pure-electric cars, autonomous driving and greater degrees of connectivity.

Stadler also said Audi would set up a division specifically tasked with developing an autonomous vehicle.

The new company, called SDS, was already looking for partners to help develop the new tech, said the Audi CEO, who said his vision was a "robot car that may not need a steering wheel or pedals, so it's ideal for urban traffic", Stadler said.

Until now, only the forthcoming e-tron quattro, which goes on sale in 2018, has been confirmed for production.

Audi's race to develop pure-electric vehicles comes in the wake created by its parent company Volkswagen's Dieselgate emissions scandal.

Audi's boss said it would reduce complexity to help pay for the new pure-electric vehicle's development and that would include potentially dropping some modes, like the three-door A3 hatch, from the range without losing customers.

The battery-electric e-tron quattro (which could be called the Q6) has a target price of €60,000 to €65,000 in Germany, putting it in top-end A6 range on cost as well as size.

In 2018 production form it will offer five seats, 500km of range between charges and, if the concept car was an accurate guide, a total output of 370kW/800Nm from its three electric motors.

With an over-boost function that delivers another 50kW for hard acceleration, 100km/h could be reached in just 4.6 seconds, although its top speed is governed at 210km/h.

A new generation of 150kW charger technology will give the e-tron quattro 400km of range from only half an hour of charging and upcoming 800kW chargers promise to shrink that time even further.

The 4.88-metre SUV is 1.93 metres wide but only 1.54 metres high, at least in concept form, and has 615 litres of luggage capacity.