Audi A8 Production Is Ending After 32 Years With No Successor in Sight

For over three decades, the A8 has represented the pinnacle of Audi’s ambitions. At a time when luxury marques around the world were defined by their flagship executive sedans—the Mercedes S-Class, the BMW 7 Series, the Lexus LS—Ingolstadt needed its very own to lead the way. But lately, Audi hasn’t hinted at any plan to replace the current, fourth-gen A8, which first hit showrooms in 2017, foreshadowing news the brand has shared today: Production of the A8 is ending without a successor in sight.

Audi confirmed to The Drive that it actually stopped taking orders in Germany for the A8 weeks ago, on February 18. The sedan remains on sale in the U.S. at the time of writing, and it’s unclear when our order books will close as well.

A representative from the automaker stipulated that it “will only communicate further details about a possible successor at a later date,” which leaves the model’s future up in the air. This doesn’t definitively mark the end, but if it turns out to be, we may not know for years.

The A8’s absence from Audi’s German configurator was first clocked by Motor1 early Friday. At one point, a next-gen model was expected to effectively take the form of a production version of the 2021 Grandsphere concept—a large electric sedan with a new design language.

That plan was shelved, possibly influenced by Porsche’s reported decision to delay its K1 electric SUV, with which a prospective future A8 could’ve shared a platform. Audi’s confirmed none of this, of course, but the tumultuous nature of EV investments from the beginning of the decade until now has wreaked havoc on practically every automaker’s roadmap.

And so Audi’s once-flagship has bitten the dust, just like the Lexus LS. With any luck, this will prove a mere hiatus for the A8 caused by the EV platform shakeup, and the company is still eyeing a successor. When all is said and done, it’ll just have been a bit delayed. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

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