One thing I want to say is regarding the fan base. Yes, you need to adapt to the customer fan base you already have. But secondly, you need to take into account that you have a target group that is growing into your products.
So in five to 10 years, you have our S customers who are coming out of the digital age and maybe they are not missing the [engine] sound. You need to look at what target group you are aiming for.
What lessons have you learned from the RS e-Tron GT that you’re applying to this 2030 target?
Performance is not a problem at all. Secondly, with the Audi E-Tron GT and the RS, we also need to bring a specific differentiating design and we need to make it more sharp. So, edgy, sporty – people love to have these elements in the electric age.
Also, what kind of digitalisation topics you’re bringing into your cars. Today, people are paying attention to hardware stuff, like rims, seats, exterior parts. But what is the mirror to that on the digital side? You need to create value to the customer from that side.
Are you excited about the prospect of RS-branded SUVs?
We have our Audi RS Q3 and Audi RS Q8 which are very well accepted in the market. But we will definitely also bring more SUV models in the RS segment and also in the electric world. We have 16 different models within the RS portfolio and we are trying to offer the perfect product to different customer groups.
But we don’t want RS ‘inflation’. So not each product should be an RS.
Will Audi Sport do its own version of the SSP platform, like Porsche is rumoured to be doing?
What I can say is, we are trying to use the synergies in the [Volkswagen] Group. We are trying to use the same platforms so we are not developing our own platform for Audi Sport. We try to make it perfectly aligned with our mother, with Audi. And then we try to bring all the requirements into the platform to have the perfect baseline to make an RS model.
