Car enthusiasts of the world: Hold on tight for this one.
The head of Audi Sport customer racing, Chris Reinke, told Car Sales he foresees a future where gasoline-powered performance vehicles will be relegated to weekends at the racetrack or on rally courses. Gas-powered performance cars will appear nowhere else.
Reinke compared the future of automobiles to sailboat racing. People used to take goods across the ocean with sailboats, but now it's all handled with container ships—people still sail, but only recreationally. The man behind Audi Sport customer racing went on to say sailboats have essentially turned into a leisure activity and that's what will happen with gas-powered performance vehicles.
For day-to-day-driving people will ride in all-electric autonomous vehicles, according to Reinke.
While this shift won't happen overnight, there's evidence to support Reinke's prediction. The Dutch government started to look at banning gas- and diesel-powered vehicle (but not hybrids) sales by 2025 in 2016. Later in 2016 Germany looked at the same thing for 2030, and in 2017 China started to join the movement. In 2018 a bill called for a ban on internal combustion cars by 2040 in California.
It's clear the future is electric. Porsche introduced the all-electric 2020 Taycan sport sedan on Sept. 9, and Volkswagen introduced the ID 3 hatchback at the 2019 Frankfurt auto show. No segment is going untouched, as a slew of all-electric pickup trucks are in development ranging from the sales-leading Ford F-150 to General Motors and startups like Rivian and its R1S and Tesla.
Maybe the Goodwood Revival gathering will be one of the last bastions of gas-powered cars.
