Electric Audi A8 Coming In 2024 Will Look Like A Smaller grandsphere Concept

Jan. 30, 2023 6:16 AM ET bySebastian Cenizo Electric Vehicles /5 Comments

The upcoming luxury EV, expected in 2024, will be "very close" to the self-driving grandsphere concept.

Audi design boss Marc Lichte has revealed that thegrandsphere concept revealed in the third quarter of 2021is a "very concrete teaser" of what to expect from the upcomingAudi A8EV, which will likely be called the A8 e-tron and is expected to be revealed in 2024. Speaking withAutocar, Lichte said: "It's not far away from what will become production. It's not 1:1, but very close."

This suggests that most of the styling flourishes of the grandsphere will be carried over to the A8, just on a slightly smaller scale. That is reasonable since the concept is considerably bigger than the largest A8 on sale today at almost 18 feet long.

The styling of the grandsphere concept is relatively restrained and undramatic compared to those of the other three Sphere concepts, so it's no surprise that this is the design that will be heading to production almost unchanged. That being said, we can expect the other concepts to inform future vehicles from Ingolstadt too. Theskysphere previews a roadster,urbansphere a minivan of sorts, and the latest, the activesphere,previews a kind of crossover.

As a reminder, the grandsphere concept is 17.6 feet long, produces 710 horsepower, and hides its controls behind the dashboard when driving itself autonomously. While those aspects won't make their way to the A8 just yet, Audi has confirmed that the grandsphere indicates where Audi is going later this decade.

"The Audi grandsphere concept is the representative of the concept vehicle [family] that comes closest to a series project," said Audi PR spokesperson Josef Schlossmacher. "We can see that we're talking about a luxury sedan with an electric drive that will have Level 4 automated driving. It's something we're setting the stage for in the second half of the decade."

As we learned late last year, Audi has been forced todelay its plans for self-drivingdue to issues at Volkswagen's Cariad software subsidiary. Still, we suspect that the electric A8 will have some semi-autonomous abilities, and with the Premium Platform Electric underpinnings co-developed with Porsche, it should offer extraordinary range and quick recharging.