Two months after taking office as Audi’s new CEO, Markus Duesmann is setting up a new unit that will be tasked with “the accelerated development of additional automobile models.” The Artemis project will focus on “new technologies for electric, highly automated driving.” Its first task is to create “a highly efficient electric car” to be on the road as early as 2024.

The head of Artemis will be Alex Hitzinger, an engineer with a background in motorsport who is currently in charge of autonomous driving for the Group. He and his team will “develop a pioneering model for Audi quickly and unbureaucratically,” taking advantage of all the resources and technologies of the entire Volkswagen Group. In the medium term, the new unit is expected to create “a fast and agile development process at the Group, as agile as in a racing team.”

The project team will be given a large degree of freedom and will work globally, from the high-tech hub of the INCampus in Ingolstadt to the West Coast of the US. Digital services will be provided by the Group’s own unit, car.Software.org, also based in Ingolstadt.

“The Volkswagen Group’s brands stand for excellent technologies—and have potential for much more,” said Duesmann. “With 75 planned electric models by 2029, the current electric initiative at the Volkswagen Group naturally ties up all our capacities. The obvious question was how we could implement additional high-tech benchmarks without jeopardizing the manageability of existing projects, and at the same time utilize new opportunities in the markets.”

Source: Audi