With the fully electric e-tron Vision Gran Turismo concept car, Audi is now turning electric mobility into a tangible experience in a unique way. Originally developed exclusively for virtual races on PlayStation 4, Audi is making the new racecar a reality in conjunction with Formula E. Starting with the race in Rome on 14 April 2018, the Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo will be deployed as a race taxi.
The customers and guests of the brand with the four rings will be able to experience Formula E’s city circuits as passengers in the e-tron Vision Gran Turismo starting at the race in Rome.
Employees at Audi’s pre-production centre developed and produced this one-of-a-kind sports car within the space of just 11 months based on the example of the Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo from the Gran Turismo PlayStation game.
The million-selling Gran Turismo game has long acquired cult status with gamers around the globe. Audi has been working together with Sony and Polyphony Digital (the creators of Gran Turismo) for nearly 20 years. Audi designers created the e-tron Vision Gran Turismo for the Vision Gran Turismo competition that was launched on the market on the occasion of the popular game’s 15th anniversary. Numerous automobile manufacturers developed virtual racecars for the contest.
Many of these concept cars were subsequently built as full-scale models and presented at trade shows. The Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo, however, is the first concept car of this range to be deployed to real-world racetracks as a fully functional vehicle.
“This is what we are particularly proud of,” said Audi’s chief designer Marc Lichte. “Although the design of a virtual vehicle allows much greater freedom and the creation of concepts which are only hard to implement in reality, we did not want to put a purely fictitious concept on wheels. Our aim was a fully functional car. The Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo shows that electric mobility at Audi is very emotive. This car incorporates numerous elements of our new design language such as the inverted single frame in the vehicle’s colour that will be typical for our new e-tron models.” 
Check out McLaren’s Ultimate Vision Gran Turismo.
Check out Sony’s PlayStation 4 Gran Turismo Sport Special Edition.
