What do the Audi R8 and Audi E-tron GT have in common? Not much. Different powertrain, different chassis, different bodystyle. Not a single part is shared. And yet there’s one major commonality, as you will probably have guessed from the images: they are both built on the same production line at Audi Sport’s Böllinger Höfe plant in Neckarsulm, Germany.
It’s a feat of manufacturing that’s not to be underestimated: it’s the only example across the entire Volkswagen Group where two models with no commonalities are built on the same line.
It’s an unusual scenario. The R8 is predominantly hand-made and V10-powered, while the E-tron GT is fully electric and reflects a new world of automation and digitalisation. So why produce them together?
Böllinger Höfe was opened in 2014 and became home to the first and then the second-generation R8, and it had always been planned as a flexible small-scale plant, explains production director Wolfgang Schanz: “It was a good chance for us to show the potential, flexible structure of this production site. Because the R8 volume was quite low, we had capacity.”
Still, it’s some shift: before the E-tron GT came along last year, the site was hand-making 10 R8s a day. The total number of cars is now around 60, when you factor in the E-tron GTs made on the highly automated line.
And of course the R8 won’t be around forever, so the facility needed to be used for something – and inevitably it would, sooner or later, be electric. No end date for R8 production is yet confirmed, but a run-out R8 GT RWD is expected later this year and all production is likely to end by 2024. An electric R8 successor of sorts is due in its place but not immediately, so having the well-received E-tron GT on the books is a sensible move.
The site’s adaptation for the E-tron GT was an efficient one. Firstly, it’s the first model in Audi’s history that was prepared entirely for production without a physical prototype. Audi developed virtual-reality software based on 360deg scans creating a three-dimensional map of the plant, which then allowed all testing of the E-tron GT’s production processes to be virtual.
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