Audi A8 to Share Platform and Assembly Plant With Porsche Panamera

Audi's flagship A8 is on the way out, but Audi has said the nameplate will eventually come back, and a new report offers a clearer picture of when it might return and how it would be built. According to the German newspaper Heilbronner Stimme, Porsche's plant in Leipzig is the likely assembly site for the next A8.

The sedan would ride on the same structure as the next-generation Panamera. The arrangement would lock in a full-size sedan future for a pair of the VW Group's luxury marques. It mirrors the structure already in place for the electric Porsche Taycan and Audi E-Tron GT, which share underpinnings across both marques.

Buyers hoping to get into a new A8 soon will have to wait. Production plans would reportedly begin "from 2030 at the earliest." The current A8 is reportedly due to wrap up production sometime next year, opening a gap of roughly three years at the summit of Audi's range.

Audi plans to steer customers toward its new flagship Q9 SUV during that stretch, with the eventual sedan revival restoring an option for full-size four-door buyers. Building an Audi product at a Porsche facility would mean Audi output moving out of an Audi plant. That shift would affect workers at sites that have historically built only Audis during a turbulent period for the Volkswagen Group.

It would not automatically force the closure of the factory that last assembled the A8, though no large sedan production is currently earmarked there for the near future.

For now, the plans remain at the reporting stage without any official confirmation from Audi or Porsche.

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