Audi India set to launch luxury electric car with superior mileage in 2020

Company plans to offer cars that can do 400 km on a single charge, as opposed to existing EVs that can run 150 km at most.

German luxury car maker  Audi  is getting ready to launch a luxury electric vehicle (EV) in the country in 2020. It is working on training of employees and dealers. The company said dealerships will need to have a charging station as well. It plans to sell EVs at select dealerships in few cities depending on the progress in charging infrastructure to begin with.

“The government has clearly sent a message that EV is the future and not hybrids while introducing the GST last year. For the past nine months, we have been working heavily on the infrastructure. We have set up a task force called Electrified India within the company to work on the EV launch in India,” Rahil Ansari, Head, Audi India told Business Standard.

Ansari said EV is the future for Audi globally. “Globally, we are launching four EVs by 2020. By 2025, a lot more models will be added. Our expectation is that Audi will sell 800,000 EVs globally a year in 2025, which should then be roughly one-third of global volume. We are in a position to launch an EV in 2020 latest here in India but we will do so once the infrastructure is in place and there is clarity on all fronts. Launching is the easiest part,” he added.

Audi is working on training its employees and dealerships on electric vehicles. Dealerships need wiring, charging stations. “We have been training people at Audi India. We will work on these over next one and half year. We will not sell it everywhere in the country and not at all the dealerships,” he said. Many others mass and luxury players are expected to launch EVs in India in 2020. Country’s biggest car maker Maruti Suzuki is working with Japanese peer Toyota to launch an electric vehicle in India in 2020. Homegrown auto majors Tata Motors and M&M are the only companies that are producing electric cars in India at this point.

The government said in February it will not bring a dedicated electric vehicle policy but it is working on a new auto policy that will also set an agenda for environment friendly vehicles. Ansari said a central policy would have been ideal though the government has decided not to have one. “The industry could have worked according to framework. Suppose we launch an EV in 2020 and in 2021 a policy opposes the product. We always run that risk so it always helps to have a policy”.

Ansari said that Audi EVs will not be similar to the ones that are being sold in the country at this point. “The locally developed ones have a reach of 90-120 km after one charge and may go up to 150km. At Audi, we are talking about 400 km-plus distance with one charge. If you drive smoothly you might be able to do a round trip between Mumbai and Pune on one charge”, he said.