Future of Audi's Brussels plant secured with new top-end electric SUV, report says

BERLIN -- Audi plans to build a battery-powered version of its range-topping SUV, the Q8, at its plant in Brussels, securing the factory's future, according to Automobilwoche, a sister publication of Automotive News Europe. 

Production on the vehicle, which will be called the Q8 e-tron, will begin in 2026, according to the report, which cited company sources.

The plant currently builds the Audi e-tron and e-Tron Sportback EVs, which are due to get a facelift in 2023, then go out of production in 2026. The two cars are underpinned by Audi's MLB Evo platform, which is being phased out and replaced by the Premium Platform Electric.

The Q8 e-tron will replace the Q8, which is built at Volkswagen Group's factory in Bratislava, Slovakia and sold only with combustion engines including hybrid drivetrains.

Audi sold 5,313 units of the Q8 in Europe through April, up 37 percent year-on-year, according to JATO Dynamics market researchers.

Audi's works council welcomed the decision to allocate the Q8 e-tron to the Brussels plant. "For us, it's important that that Audi models are produced at Audi locations," a works council spokesman told German motoring magazine auto motor sport.

Audi's employee representatives have been lobbying for parent Volkswagen Group to add more electric-car production to the luxury brand's factories.

The works council is reported to be unhappy that the Audi Q4 E-Tron is being built at VW's plant in Zwickau, Germany, alongside its MEB platform siblings the VW ID3 and ID4, and Cupra Born. Skoda's MEB-based electric SUV, the Enyaq, is being produced at the brand's main plant in Mlada Boleslav in the Czech Republic.

Questions over the future of the Brussels-based plant arose last year after the site lost a bid to build Audi's new flagship electric sedan, codenamed the Landjet and developed by its Project Artemis. The sedan is scheduled to start production in 2024 alongside versions for Porsche and Bentley.

That bid was won by VW's commercial vehicles factory in Hanover, Germany, leaving the Belgian plant without a follow-up project for the e-tron and e-tron Sportback, currently the only vehicles produced at the site.

The plant is more than 70 years old, with the first vehicle rolling off the production line in 1949. It currently employs 3,076 people.

According to Automobilwoche, the final decision on the production location for the Q8 e-tron will be made in November during the company's next planning round. This would allow enough time to ensure the plant has enough capacity to produce the SUV.

When contacted by Automotive News Europe, an Audi spokesperson said the company would not comment on speculative news reports.

Audi said on June 22 that it will phase out production of combustion engines by early next decade except in China, as the company accelerates its transition to becoming an electric-only automaker.