What's the news?
Audi held its Annual General Meeting at Neckarsulm this week and during the meeting, it confirmed it is going to bring a Q4 to market at around the same time as its Q8 SUV.
Extrapolating from the BMW pattern - in which any odd-numbered X-model is a normal SUV and any even-numbered machine a coupe - Audi is doing much the same thing; the Q8 is a sportier version of a Q7, sacrificing much of the latter's practicality, and therefore the Q4 should be a rakish alternative to a Q3.
Further to the SUVs announcement, Rupert Stadler - chairman of the Audi's board of management - also confirmed that five 'core series' will be entirely replaced by the middle of 2018. Having a rough guess, that'll be the A8, A7, A6, A3 and possibly the Q3.
Stadler added: "We are rejuvenating our model portfolio enormously and will renew five existing core model series by mid-2018. In addition, we will expand our successful Q family by 2019 with two new concepts - the Audi Q8 and the Audi Q4 - and we will launch our battery-electric e-tron models."
Anything else?
Moving onto the electric cars, Audi wants to launch three new electric models by 2020, after which it is claiming it will 'gradually electrify' models in every one of its core series. First up for such treatment will be the forthcoming A7 and A8 models, entering their next generations, while - looking further ahead - the German marque is targeting in excess of 30 per cent for fully or partially electric vehicle sales by 2025.