2023 Audi R8 to be the 17th and last year for the super coupe
In October, Audi launched us to the ultimate particular version for the R8, the 2023 Audi R8 V10 GT RWD. This was the second coming of the GT title to the Audi lineup, following the 2012 Audi R8 V10 GT. Audi restricted the earlier automobile to 333 coupes and 333 Spyders. The brand new GT will solely get 333 coupes, R8 technical supervisor Nils Fischer telling CarBuzz there is not sufficient general R8 manufacturing left to squeeze in a Spyder. The Ingolstadt automaker figures to construct about 2,000 R8s at for the 2023 mannequin 12 months, then the R8 is useless after two generations and 17 years available on the market. Because it stands, there isn’t any successor anyplace close to able to go. Fischer instructed Automotive and Driver the small print of a next-gen automobile are nonetheless being sorted out.
The consensus has been there’s one thing electrical headed for the highest spot. Audi produced a really brief lived electrical R8 E-Tron with the second-gen R8, promoting simply 100 examples in a 12 months earlier than pulling the plug. As EVs grew to become the factor, rumors of one other electrical R8 continued. Generally the rumors have been spun from conceptual fabric, like then when Audi confirmed the PB18 E-Tron Idea in 2018. Generally these have been spun from unnamed insiders, just like the 2019 prediction that there can be an R8 E-Tron GTR based mostly on the Porsche Taycan’s platform. Generally they got here from government statements, like when a model VIP instructed Automotive DriftInsh24 in 2021 an R8 EV “will not simply be an R8 with an electrical motor,” it might be, slightly, “an R8 however completely different.” And typically whispers from “Audi insiders” obtained the rumor spigot going once more, like when Autocar wrote in September of this 12 months that “the supercar has not but been formally signed off however may be very a lot underway” and will not be referred to as R8 nor appear like the R8, and when Automotive and Driver wrote a month later the automobile is codenamed Rnext and has been pushed again to 2029.
Even the powertrain is up within the air, apparently, because of the European Union leaving a door open to artificial fuels for now. An Audi challenge supervisor has already mentioned he believes the ICE might survive previous 2030 in Europe. On prime of this, all of the shuffling happening on the VW group with respect to personnel, platforms, software program, and tentpole product initiatives like Mission Trinity have a tendency to scale back visibility to only past arm’s size. The one sound guess is that there will probably be one thing to occupy the halo spot someday earlier than the top of the last decade.
In the meantime, begin saving your Christmas card cash. The Audi R8 V10 Efficiency RWD begins at about $162,000 within the U.S., and it is going, going, virtually gone.
