Audi commits to electric only future, with last ICE car launch set for 2026

German automaker Audi will launch its last combustion engine vehicle in 2026, according to company boss Markus Duesmann, and by 2032 the company will only sell electric vehicles.

Earlier this year, the Volkswagen subsidiary announced that it would cease development of new combustion engines but would not offer an end date for its new commitment.

Company CEO Markus Duesmann, speaking to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, said that Audi would begin adapting its “combustion engines to new emission rules” but that  “More than 90% of the cars we currently sell are combustion engines”.

Duesmann acknowledged, however, that “the future is electric” and that “We will manage the transition until our customers have decided to phase out the internal combustion engine.”

Last Friday, according to Automobilwoche, a German-language sister publication of Automotive News, Duesmann put flesh on the bones of his company’s commitment to phase out combustion engines in meetings with Audi’s works council and managers through the preceding week.

Automobilwoche learned that Duesmann met with the works council on Tuesday 15 June and with company managers on Thursday 17, wherein he explained that the company’s last combustion engine vehicle would be launched in 2026, after which there was to be no more development into ICE models, including hybrid models.

Duesmann informed his staff that Audi was to only make purely electric vehicles from the early 2030s onwards – leading Automobilwoche to assume the last combustion engine vehicle would roll off the production line in 2032.

Further, Automobilwoche has learned that Audi models such as the A3 and A4 will no longer have a combustion engine successor and will be instead replaced by purely electric models such as the A3 e-tron and A4 e-tron – with the latter to shift to its all-electric model as early as 2024.

It is expected that the last Audi combustion engine model to roll off the production line will be the Q8 SUV, which will launch alongside the Q8 e-tron model in 2026. Subsequent reports have suggested that the Q8 will then end production in 2032.

Little more is known, considering the manner in which the news has been reported, relying on insider gossip and leaks.

However, the news rings true, and places Audi ahead of the likes of peers like Mercedes and BMW in terms of setting a specific end date for its combustion engine development and production.