Is there a light at end of the tunnel, or is it darkness?
Audi isn’t yet certain what the will do with its flagship sports car. It could abandon the combustion engine to go fully electric, like the million-dollar . Or it might just be scrapped altogether with no direct replacement. It seems that they are considering a third scenario. The go-faster Audi Sport division expressed interest in keeping the V10 alive for the supercar’s third generation.
Oliver Hoffmann, managing director of the division, stated that they are doing their best to convince the executives to keep the high-revving, 5.2-liter engine for the R8 in an interview with Autocar.
Be careful not to get too excited about Europe’s stricter emissions laws. This is further supported by the fact that the supercar has a low volume product. It might not be worthwhile to keep the old-school engine.
V10 or no, the next iteration R8 is slated to arrive in 2022. There is also a possibility that a 5.2 FSI variant will be available as a limited-run edition alongside the regular electric model. With Lamborghini It is expected that the engine will be retained for the Huracan’s successor. This means that the Volkswagen Group won’t be abandoning the engine in any foreseeable future.
Hoffmann claims that Lamborghini and Audi Sport “are very close” in sharing development costs. The R8 and Huracan (and limited-run ) share so many things, it is likely that their successors will once again share many hardware parts. We don’t think Audi would be surprised if the baby raging bull electrifies the V10 through making it part of a hybrid engine.
Hoffmann also reiterated Audi Sport’s plans for more hardcore R8 versions. One of these will be shown next week at Goodwood Festival of Speed, according to Autocar. It is a GT2-spec customer racing car.