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Audi's Project Artemis woes could delay range of VW Group EVs

Two years ago, Audi's then new CEO Markus Duesmann announced his first big initiative called Project Artemis. The plan's marquee component is "to implement a new lighthouse project for Audi in record time," being "a highly efficient electric car scheduled to be on the road as early as 2024" on a brand new platform that would be shared with Porsche and Bentley. An ex-VW and -Porsche man named Alex Hitzinger, who'd also spent time at Apple working on the tech company's electric car, was brought on board to lead Project Artemis and come up with new ideas. Parent Volkswagen Group said it wanted to become "as agile as in a racing team," removing the bureaucratic molasses and bottlenecks interfering with getting the best product on the road in the best time. However, in any grand venture, failure comes before success. Automobilwoche reports that Artemis is struggling through issues large enough to push the product plans back by years. The issue, as it was with the ID.3 lineup on the eve of that car's launch, is software. Well, that's the latest, largest problem; Artemis has already been through copious struggles before getting to the software bit. Two months after Hitzinger came on, in December 2020, VW raised its EV volume target from 50% to 70% by 2030. That necessitated a rethink of the VW Group's entire platform strategy considering the far greater production scale. Hitzinger only lasted six months in the job, ousted in May 2021, supposedly because Audi believed his ideas were "not suitable for profitable series production" among other reasons. By that time, the pace of software development was already said to be six months behind schedule, with the Car.Software division working on VW.OS 2.0 "not yet running at the speed hoped for." Internal frictions were noteworthy and costly as well. VW's commercial division plant in Hanover was meant to build Artemis vehicles for Audi, Porsche and Bentley, but Automobilwoche reported in January of this year that Porsche paid a ""small three-digit million amount" — like $100 million or so — to get out of the deal mandating its vehicles come from the Hanover facility.    So Audi effectively brought Artemis in-house to lead vehicle development, and Car.Software turned into Cariad to get VW.OS and VW.AC, which stands for Automotive Cloud, to market.  The first Audi vehicle under Project Artemis was planned to arrive by the end of 2024, a production version of the Grandsphere concept.

The art of being teammates

Returning home from a successful event for our CJ Wilson Racing team I couldn't help to think about just how many people are involved to support the drivers that stand on the podium. Friends of 15 to 20 years are actively involved in my life in motorsports and it amazes me daily. I'd like to think that I possess the right blend of passion and humility to make racing for a living a successful career, and each year the ups and downs of motorsports takes a toll on even the savviest racer. Having been a race driver for the past several years, I had long ago stopped taking for granted just how important friendships & relationships are in life. In motorsports we have a large array of relationships we build, from the perspectives of business, crew, competitors, spectators and of course, teammates. For any young racer or driver that is struggling to stay an integral part of the racing community, I can't stress enough just how important relationship building is and in our world of multi-class & multi-driver line-ups, the "teammate" is a big one. Now in my fifth year with CJ Wilson Racing, I started the season with my 10th different teammate, most of which, came in the first season as we were developing into a program that could operate a two-car effort. These are people that I have coached, improved with and become, in a way, brothers. Most I consider friends, people I actively stay in touch with – not out of obligation, but because they are like family to me. They have been a teammate – and in this industry and our series in particular – there has to be something more cohesive than just sharing a car. Standing on the podium with all of your teammates like we did in this year in Monterey (our #33 ONE Capital / MotorOilMatters and #35 Safecraft Safety Equipment Porsche Caymans finished 2nd and 3rd) is one of those moments that you don't forget, in part, because you get to share it with ones you typically spend the most time. I watched both Danny Burkett and Till Bechtolsheimer go to the front after the green dropped and drive perfect opening stints. Sure, while cameras were rolling I played it cool, but as soon as they turned away I was a beacon of giddy pride like I was watching a little brother riding his bike without training wheels for the first time. When it came my turn to get behind the wheel, I knew that one of my closest friends, Tyler McQuarrie, would be in our sister car.

See what the Chevy C7 ZR1 may be benchmarked against

One of the greatest things every Corvette has had going for it, and also one of the most re-used arguments against it, is its price-to-performance equation - long before the Nissan GT-R became the de facto Porsche 911 comparator the Corvette spent decades as Exhibit A. Depending on which side of the argument you stressed, supporters crowed about how much performance you got for how (comparatively) little, detractors carped on how little you got everywhere else in the bargain.
It appears Chevrolet is working as hard as ever to render the argument meaningless. Spy shooters at KGP captured a convocation of European birds of prey leaving the General Motors test center, and aimed at benchmarking the C7 Corvette ZR1. The road train comprised of two C7 Corvette Stingrays, a 2013 Corvette ZR1, McLaren MP4-12C, Ferrari 458 Italia, Audi R8 V10 Spyder and Porsche 911 Carrera S and it was last seen heading down the same kinked-up back roads used to hone the Corvette Stingray.
The C7-series ZR1 and its possible 700 horsepower are still a ways off. If it really is being positioned to compete with the celestial exotica in the testing group, could it be the first Corvette to regularly be the first answer to the question "Cost no object, which would would you rather have?"