“This is excellent news, we are ready and the car industry needed a certain date for the phase out”. Hildegard Wortmann, global head of marketing and member of the board of Audi, reacts enthusiastically to the decision of the European Parliament to approve the stop to the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2035. An epochal change, much discussed by many professionals and top managers automotive because it is considered excessive and not respectful of technological neutrality. For the marketing and sales manager of the house of the four rings it is instead a fantastic opportunity to make the industry and the supply chain evolve, also in relation to the necessary creation of a fast charging network for electric cars. “There are no alternatives to decarbonisation. We – continues Wortmann – launched a 40 billion euro plan for the electric car and we plan to stop sales of thermal cars in 2032 after having stopped launching new models with internal combustion engines in 2026 ». Hildegard Wortmann took part in the Audi House of Progress in Milan for Design Week together with Marc Lichte, top design manager of the house of the four rings, and Fabrizio Longo, director of Audi Italia.
An event that had two exceptional guests: the A6 Avant e-tron concept, almost definitive version of the electric super wagon with 700 km of automia based on the PPE platform and the Audi Grandsphere, a futuristic (but not unreal) showcar that marks a a turning point in design, technology and automated driving and is projected, explained chief designer Lichte, towards a not too distant future where man-machine interaction will focus on life on board and not on driving.
When possible, a software and silicon driver will take care of that. But not only cars like the three «sphere» concepts, and in particular Urban Sphere, which relaunches the minivan formula, are designed «inside out» giving priority to the interiors conceived as a mobile living room enabled by autonomous driving. And it is precisely on the interiors of the Grandsphere that we see the just announced partnership between Audi and Poliform, one of the most well-known Italian brands in the world of furnishings.
Returning, however, to the car industry and the challenges it is facing (pandemic, chip shortage, energy transition) it is increasingly clear that the competitive scenario and the geography of the automotive sector itself are changing rapidly, especially with the arrival of Chinese brands that come both from the car and, dangerously, from the world of technology and smartphones. «It is – says Hildegard Wortmann – an important challenge but we are ready to win it: we are evolving from a car manufacturer to a protagonist of mobility. We invest enormous amounts in software at the Vw group level and with Cariad, our software company, we want to strategically maintain the development of solutions in-house ». The challenge brought by the epochal changes taking place also has a great impact on the premium sector and here the evolution explained by the Audi managers is aimed at creating a high overall value in the mobility experience and passing from being behind the wheel to using it without having to manage it. , and in the future, to drive.