Totalcar – Magazine – Audi’s new concept turns from a luxury car into a pickup

Of course, it’s electric, all-wheel drive and full of huge glass surfaces, worthy of a regular concept. This is the Audi Activesphere, which is both a city crossover loaded with luxury and an off-road pickup rolling on 22-inch wheels, optimized for bicycle transport.

Four rings representing a former car manufacturer in the Audi logo, four futuristic concept cars within two years: the Skysphere dissected the idea of ​​an electric sports car, the Grandsphere reinterpreted the genre of luxury sedans, while the Urbansphere looked for a solution to the challenges of urban transportation.

Now here’s the Activesphere, which in automatic driving mode is a rolling living room, but at the push of a button it’s an off-road adventurer that swallows bikes. An open sense of space, disappearing controls, huge wheels and an electric drive with plenty of torque. Even if not in such a complex form, Activesphere is not so far from future feasibility.

The concept was designed by Audi’s Florida studio in Malibu, which perhaps explains a lot in itself. Of course, it is also based on the modular PPE platform, which means 800-volt technology with an electric range of roughly 600 kilometers.

The Activesphere is also 4.98 meters long, 2.07 meters wide and 1.60 meters high, while the wheelbase is 2.97 meters for a spacious interior. Its 22-inch wheels are 285/55 Pirellis, and the rear-view mirrors are cameras for low drag.

That beyond the asphalt let’s take the concept seriously, the standard 208 mm ground clearance can be raised by up to four centimeters, while the self-driving greenhouse has ground angles of 18.9 degrees at the front and 28.1 degrees at the rear.

We love extreme automatic roof solutions, and from this point of view the Activesphere also delivers what is expected, as it turns into a pickup truck when pressed on a hill.

Of course, there is no B-pillar, but the C-pillar remains in place during the transformation, while the lower part of the rear panel folds down to complete the luggage space, so that the upper piece of glass slides over the roof to open the back of the Activesphere. The space divider comes up, and the motorized trick is ready.