International - Audi’s current design idiom is built around large, angular grilles that give them a predatory presence on the road, but future models will be “softer”.
The German brand’s design boss, Marc Lichte, has told Top Gear that future car designs would be “softer, more friendly, (and) less aggressive”.
Lichte referred to the recently unveiled Audi Activesphere concept as a case in point: “I think this car… is not aggressive, it’s the opposite. It’s very soft, very friendly… there’s no edge on the exterior design.
“Okay, there’s a lower layer which is really rugged, but we want to visualise this, no? I see, in general, car design will become more friendly. At Audi definitely. But I see this as a trend in general.”
One of the reasons for this, Top Gear reports, is the war in Ukraine, and another is that the company’s new electric car platform gives its many opportunities to do something different.
The first sign of the new design order at Audi will probably come in the form of the next-generation A8 luxury sedan, which is set to be heavily inspired by the Grandsphere concept that was revealed in 2021, Autocar says.
Not only will it be a big design departure for the brand, but the new flagship sedan will go all-electric from the next generation. It’s set to be underpinned by the new PPE architecture that was developed in conjunction with Porsche, and which will underpin the upcoming A6 and Q6 e-tron models.
Car interiors are also set to change radically, and Lichte has stated that future cars will be designed from the inside out.
The recently revealed Activesphere concept (read more about it here) showed some interesting interactive mixed reality tech that blends virtual reality with the real world, but just how soon we’ll see this in production cars is anybody’s guess.
“There’s no doubt about it: in the future, mixed reality will take the possibilities of AR head-up displays to a whole new level in terms of flexibility, precision and displayable content,” Audi says.