Could an Audi Pickup Be in the Cards?

The company's CEO didn't reveal many details

Audi logo
Sounds like Audi is hinting at something a little different.
dpa/picture alliance via Getty I

Whether a storied marque or an upstart startup, it’s a time of change and reinvention for countless automakers. Audi is no different. This week, the company revealed even more about its expansion into the field of electric vehicles, including an advance look at the A6 Avant e-tron.

Rethinking its line of autos to run on electricity rather than internal combustion is one big change for Audi, but it’s not the only one. Autocar reports that the marque’s CEO, Markus Duesmann, suggested that Audi is looking into the possibility of making its own pickup truck.

Duesmann’s comments came this week, as he took questions pertaining to Audi’s annual earnings report. To be fair, what Duesmann said was fairly vague. His response to a question about whether an Audi pickup might happen was relatively even-handed — less a prediction of something and more of a hint of a possibility.

“I can’t promise that we will do one, but we are looking into it,” Duesmann said. Later, he offered slightly more information, saying, “Actually, we will present — not too far from now — maybe something.”

So there you have it: an automotive concept that may or may not be revealed at some point in the not-so-distant future. Still, it’s an intriguing enough hint of something in the works.

Duesmann’s comments were followed by a quip from Adrian Hallmark, CEO of Bentley. “I would not love to have one in the Bentley portfolio,” Hallmark said. So that’s one thing we do know for sure about the theoretical Audi pickup: we’ll see it before we see a theoretical Bentley pickup.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…
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