Audi will go fully electric in 2026: goodbye petrol, diesel and hybrids

The brand of the four rings has announced that it will take the big step towards electrification in 2026. Strict emissions regulations have led more and more brands to drop combustion engines from their plans and set a date for a major transformation towards the future.

The important news has been communicated by the CEO of Audi, Markus Duesmann, to his executives and employees, and the brand’s new roadmap is expected to be made official in the coming days.

Combustion models will have to be fitted with electric motors

With this major change, Audi will stop producing both petrol and diesel cars and will also say goodbye to hybrids and plug-in hybrids. So the brand’s models we know today, such as the A1, A3, A4, A5, Q3, Q5 or Q7, among many others, will be the last generations we see with combustion engines.

This shift towards electrification does not mean that Audi will remove from the market all its vehicles with engines running on fossil fuels, but rather that no new models will be produced that are not 100% electric. In this way, models with combustion powertrains will continue to roll off the factory lines until the end of their life cycle.

Audi becomes the second brand in the Volkswagen Group to announce its final step towards full electrification across all its models, after the British Bentley, which announced the same but for the year 2030.

The Volkswagen Group is one of the manufacturers investing most heavily in moving towards electrification and sustainable mobility, with the launch of important new models within the group such as the Volkswagen ID.3, the ID.4, the Cupra Born, the Audi e-tron GT, the Q4 e-tron and the Skoda Enyaq.

Currently, the brand’s fully electric range, headquartered in Ingolstadt, consists of the Audi e-tron SUV, the e-tron GT sports coupé, and the upcoming Q4 e-tron.

The chip shortage, one of the major problems

Just like Audi, brands such as Ford, Volvo, Jaguar, Smart or General Motors have already announced their dates for taking the big step towards electrification. A number of brands will face major problems regarding the availability of materials and components to manufacture their vehicles if the semiconductor crisis is not resolved.