The Audi R8 and Lamborghini Huracán could both get new engine options that would see their cylinder counts cut in half. According to new reports, the twin-charged 2.5-liter five-cylinder engine recently introduced in the 2015 Audi TT Clubsport Turbo concept at Wörthersee might eventually make its way into both the R8 and Huracán supercars.
Audi has already confirmed the second-generation R8 will not get a V-8, but Audi technical development board member Ulrich Hackenberg recently suggested to Car and Driver that a smaller, boosted engine is needed to hit sales targets in China and other parts of Asia. Lamborghini boss Stephan Winkelmann made similar suggestions, citing tax laws in Asia that significantly increase the cost of cars with big V-10s and even V-8s.
China’s new car tax laws include an annual nine-percent tax on cars with engine capacities over 2.0 liters. That’s manageable, but it ramps up exponentially after that. Cars with engines larger than 4.0 liters get slapped with a 40 percent tax, which puts Audi’s 4.0-liter V-8 in the same tax bracket as its V-10, making the V-8 pretty much a pointless option for that market.
“There are questions of the stability of the tax laws, questions of how much additional volume it would give us, questions of timing, questions of complexity, and questions of whether people in those countries even want us to do it,” Audi Quattro boss Stephan Reil told Car and Driver. “We haven’t yet [started engineering a car like that]. But it has been talked about.”
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Audi R8 And Lamborghini Huracan Could Get Five-Cylinder Engine originally appeared on topspeed.com on Sunday, 24 May 2015 18:00 EST.
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