The Audi TT Is Getting Replaced by an "Emotive" Electric Car
The Audi TT will be replaced in a few years by a new, fully electric model that might not be a sports car at all.
Audi says the new EV will be "emotive" and priced like the current TT.
Meanwhile, you can order a special-edition TT online starting next month, a first for Audi.
At Audi's yearly general meeting today, chairman of the board Bram Schot announced a new special edition of the TT called the Quantum Gray Edition, which will be Audi's first car to be offered via online sales starting next month. But that's not the most interesting bit of TT news: Schot said that the successor to the TT, due in a few years, will be a fully electric car.
Schot described the future car as "a new emotive model" that will sit in the same price range as the current TT, but he gave no other details. The 2019 TT starts at just under $46,000 but reaches a base price of almost $68,000 in TT RS form.
This decision is a consequence of Audi's desire to "concentrate maximum resources on key projects" and reduce complexity across the model ranges. Schot said the brand is examining its portfolio "for consumer relevance" and deciding at an earlier stage which new ideas to focus on and which not to. This focus includes "leaving things out," such as the TT.
So it could be that the TT replacement won't be a sports car at all, and instead something that will sell better. We think that the TT carries too much cachet for Audi to just throw the name and iconography away, though. At its inception in the mid-1990s, the TT was an instant design icon, and while later generations haven't made the same impact as the original, the TT is still unlike any other car on the market. In thinking about what this new car could be, our mind wandered back to 2014, when Audi revealed two different TT concepts: the TT Sportback and the TT Offroad, which are both pictured here.
The Sportback was essentially a stretched TT coupe with two doors added, while the Offroad was a crossover slathered in TT design cues, including the classic sloping roofline. We think either concept would fit the "emotive" description and stand apart from the current TT, and both would slot into segments that are quickly gaining electric entries-four-door "coupes" and sporty crossovers. And although Schot said that the TT would be replaced by one model, we could see a business case for both concepts to exist alongside each other. But, of course, the TT's replacement could be something entirely separate from the TT. We'll just have to wait a few years and see.
If Audi doesn't keep the TT name around, it's a sure bet the new model will get an e-tron moniker. But maybe the two could be combined. e-TTron? T-Tron? TT e-tron Sportback Quattro allroad? Okay, we'll stop now.
The TT also isn't the only Audi sports car that could be reinvented. In the same speech, Schot also said that the company's new "focusing" conversations have led Audi to ask if the R8 needs a successor with an internal-combustion engine, adding fuel to recent fires hinting that the R8's replacement will also go electric.
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