Audi has teased the first of its three new “Sphere” concept cars which tease the company’s new direction in design for the next decade. The latest one is called the Audi Grand Sphere and it is gearing up for the 2021 Munich Motor Show.
Norbert Weber, Audi’s head of interior design, said, “The Grand Sphere is clearly much closer to reality [than the Audi Aicon concept]. Around the year 2025, we want to have a new offering in the upper luxury segment – and the Grand Sphere is definitely an outlook on that. Especially when you talk about design language, both interior, and exterior, of course, we want to bring as many elements of series production as possible.”
The new design concept maintains a spacious interior due to the shorter overhangs. Audi’s vision for this new kind of concept stems from the idea behind living space, especially the lounge-like design of such lounges. The seats inside the car resemble reclining chairs, and the dashboard looks very minimalist. The center console also features a “refreshment area,” rather than the usual infotainment system controls or drive mode switches.
Audi designer Phillip Romer has compared the new Grand Sphere design to that of the Aicon concept that was first made visible at the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show. He was also quick to point out the differences between the two models. As per the information provided by him, Aicon is geared more towards autonomous driving on Level 5, whereas for the Grand Sphere the automated driving will be on Level 4. He further mentioned that the vehicle will be based on the VW Group PPE Platform which is a modified version of the J1 platform that underpins the Audi e-Tron. It will be used for under cars such as the Audi Q6 e-Tron and the next-gen Porsche Macan electric SUVs.
