Audi Q8 e-tron production starts at the Brussels plant

At the beginning of November, it was announced that the German carmaker had updated the well-known e-tron crossover. At the same time, it was given the Q8 name extension, a new battery, a further developed parking assistant and a few cosmetic corrections. The Audi Q8 e-tron will roll off Brussels's production line for the first time in mid-December.

The start of production of the Audi Q8 e-tron at the Brussels plant will mark the beginning of the era of the new top model of electric SUVs. Brussels has been a role model for sustainable production since the start of production of the Audi e-tron. Since 2018, around 160,000 units of Audi's first electric model have been delivered. From now on, the Q8 e-tron will roll off the production line there. "With its increased efficiency and range, as well as its sharpened design, the new Audi Q8 e-tron makes a strong statement for electric mobility," said Audi Board Member for Production Gerd Walker.

In addition, the plant has gained valuable experience that will be incorporated into the next step in the ramp-up of battery production in Ingolstadt. The battery assembly plant in Brussels is considered forward-looking for the entire Group. Contrary to the strategy of its market competitors, Audi is focusing on a transformation of production from within. The result is the 360factory, the Audi production of the future, for which Brussels is regarded as a model in some areas.

For Xavier Ros, Audi Board Member for Human Resources and Organisation, Audi Brussels provides valuable insights about the targeted qualification of employees. "The experience Brussels has gained since 2018 can be used across locations in the entire Audi Group." The Managing Director of Audi Brussels, Volker Germann, also emphasises the role of the workforce: "To build the Audi Q8 e-tron, we need not only our entire infrastructure but above all our employees, who manufacture this car as a team with great passion."

The facelift of the Audi Q8 e-tron does away with the 71-kilowatt-hour battery. This is replaced in the basic Q8 50 e-tron version by the former larger version with 95 kWh (net 89 kWh). In the Q8 55 e-tron and SQ8 e-tron, Audi offers a new battery with a capacity of 114 kWh (net 106 kWh). While the current essential battery is carried over from the pre-facelift model, some changes in the larger energy storage units extend down to the cell chemistry. Audi now relies on lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminium oxides (NCA) with a lower cobalt content instead of the previous lithium-nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) and exclusively on prismatic cells, which are now manufactured using the stacking process instead of the previous winding process.