Audi Brussels CEO Volker Germann also highlights the role the staff have played: “Building the Audi Q8 e-tron will take more than just our entire infrastructure. Above all, it is our team of passionate employees who come together to make this car.”
Brussels is a role model for sustainable production
The Audi Q8 e-tron will reach customers in Europe and the United States as a certified net carbon-neutral1 car. From 2025, production at all Audi plants will be carbon neutral as part of the company-wide environmental program Mission:Zero. Named “Factory of the Future” in 2020 by the employers’ association Agoria, Brussels achieved this distinction as early as 2018. Since production of the Audi e-tron began, the Belgium site has been recognized as the world’s first certified carbon-neutral high-volume production plant in the premium segment. The site switched to green power back in 2012. Among other things, Audi Brussels installed one of the region’s largest photovoltaic systems on the plant premises, covering 107,000 square meters. The system generates around 9,000-megawatt hours of power from sustainable energy every year. That’s enough to charge some 90,000 Audi Q8 e-tron units and reduce carbon emissions by 1,881 tons. The companies that supply the battery cells are obliged to use only renewable energy sources for production. The electric traction motors for production are transported from Hungary to Brussels by green freight. Since May 2022, Audi has been using rail transport on the approximately 1,300-kilometer route, a decision that reduces carbon emissions by around 2,600 tons annually.
AUDI AG has owned the Belgium site since 2007. After acquiring it, Audi Brussels converted the plant to produce the Audi A1, a new addition to the Audi model range at the time. 2018 saw the birth of the Audi e-tron. In 2021, Audi Brussels produced 43,866 all-electric cars. Starting in the second half of 2023, more than 3,000 employees will also make the Audi Q4 e-tron here.
Motorward