Audi will double the size of its SUV range within four years, with very small, very big and very sporty offerings, it confirmed at its annual general meeting today.
Chairman Rupert Stadler admitted a poorly kept secret at the today's Audi AGM, where he confirmed the baby Q1 crossover would be the first of the new, wider SUVs to hit the market, arriving in European showrooms next year.
Audi's new baby SUV will be followed in 2018 by an unnamed sports SUV -- likely to be called the Q6 (pictured here in a teaser rendering revealed at the AGM) if Audi can lock down the naming rights -- complete with electric drive, and the large Q8 in 2019.
In particular, the Q1, a teaser sketch of which was issued previously (also pictured), will mark a stunning new direction for Audi’s design language and will be the first production Audi to fully match the ideas of both Audi’s new design boss, Marc Lichte, and its engineering head, Dr Ulrich Hackenberg.
The small crossover will be sold in both front- and all-wheel drive guises and is expected to shock some people who have come to expect conservatism out of Audi’s designs. Underneath, it will be based on the MQB architecture, which explains how Audi has been able to slip it so quickly into its production line-up.
The new SUVs will play a key part in pushing Audi’s model line-up from today’s 52 vehicles to 60 by 2020, which Stadler insists is the key to the brand’s ongoing strength.
He also used the AGM, the 126th in Audi AG’s history, to report an operating profit of €1.422 billion in the first quarter of this year, on €14.65 billion in revenues, with an operating profit of 10.1 per cent.
Audi deliveries were up 5.2 per cent to 591,000 cars in the first four months of 2015, with Stadler insisting it was on track to surpass last year’s 1.74 million-car sales record. He also confirmed Audi would persist with plans to spend €24 billion on research, development and investment by 2019.
“We intend to continue growing this year – faster than the world market and in all regions. Our brand aims to set new records,” Stadler told the AGM.
Nearly three-quarters of that investment spending will end up in its cars, Audi’s board member for finance and organization, Axel Strotbek, confirmed.
“Seventy per cent of that capital expenditure will flow into the development of new models and technologies,” Strotbek confirmed.
“Despite a record level of investment, we are maintaining our ambitious financial targets and plan to achieve an operating return on sales within the strategic target corridor of eight to 10 per cent also this year.”