Audi teases Activesphere concept meant for off-road lifestyle

Max McDee, 20 August 2022

Audi thinks it has a crystal ball and it can tell the future and in all honesty - I wish they did. If all the future cars looked like the concepts from Audi’s Sphere design project we would be living in motorhaven in no time at all. But as it is with the majority of concept cars, they hardly ever make it pass the concept stage. Unless Audi learns a thing or two from Hyundai and the Ioniq 6.

Audi Skysphere was the first in the series

The Sphere design project is meant to preview different future cars based on their designated environment. We have seen so far the Skysphere presented in 2021 at Pebble Beach and looking like a steampunk coupe worthy of Bruce Wayne. It was followed by Grandsphere, a 5.5 meters long electric GT with suicide doors and a design that made grown men weep with desire.

Audi Grandsphere is a 5.5 meters long luxury GT

Then we were treated to the Urbansphere, a much less provocative and almost restrained city MPV with a gorgeous interior and no steering wheel in sight. It felt like Audi was watering down its Sphere design and getting it ready for production in the near future.

Audi Urbansphere was more restrained in the exterior design department

Thankfully Audi hasn’t forgotten what it started with Skysphere and Grandsphere and it sent its designers back to the studio, furnished them with unlimited supplies of coffee and cookies and we didn’t need to wait long for the results. Enter the Activesphere.

Audi Activesphere will debut in 2023

For now we get just one murky photo but what we can gather from it, is that the Activesphere is a large coupe, closely related to the Grandsphere. It rides on oversized wheels wrapped in ridiculously aggressive off-road tyres. Can you, just for a moment, imagine an Audi e-tron RS modified to run off-road? It’s not far off the recent Hoonitron presented by Ken Block.

Since we don't have any more photos, let's watch the Audi Grandsphere video, it can give us an idea what to expect from the Activesphere:

Audi - we salute you! It takes courage to come up with designs like these and we can only hope that some of that courage will trickle down to production models. A beautiful electric coupe riding on monster truck wheels - who wouldn’t want one? The Activesphere will officially debut at the beginning of 2023 and if you are lucky enough to be at the Monterey Car Week in California right now, you can see all the previous three Sphere concepts displayed together.

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