Bad news: Infiniti won’t build its GT-R-powered Q50 Eau Rouge after all

By Stephen Edelstein Published September 21, 2015

When it debuted at the 2014 Detroit Auto Show, the Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge concept seemed like the perfect recipe. Combining the guts of a Nissan GT-R with the body of Infiniti’s small luxury sedan, the Eau Rouge was a loud answer to the luxury hot rods from Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Cadillac, Lexus, and Volvo.

Since everything on it was based on production components, it even seemed likely that the Eau Rouge would eventually reach showrooms. And Infiniti paraded a prototype around for some time, although we have now learned that it apparently doesn’t plan to do anything else. The Eau Rouge is dead, Infiniti vice president Francois Goupil de Bouille told Car magazine in an interview at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show.

Recommended Videos

“It was just too costly. That was it,” Bouille said. He noted that the carmaker looked at sales forecasts, and decided putting this admittedly specialized model into production just wasn’t worth the investment.

The Eau Rouge’s main selling point was that it used the 3.8-liter, twin-turbocharged V6 from the GT-R, sending 560 horsepower and 442 pound-feet of torque to the wheels through the Nissan’s sophisticated all-wheel drive system. But none of these components are particularly cheap to build. GT-R engines are hand-assembled in a clean room by dedicated builders who spend years apprenticing for the job.

That may be fine in a $100,000, limited-production supercar, but adding volume by introducing a second model could have complicated things. Mercedes-Benz has managed to massively increase the output of its hand-built AMG engines, but that’s not necessarily a trick that makes sense for every carmaker.

The souring of relations between Infiniti and the Red Bull Racing Formula One team it sponsors could have also dampened enthusiasm for the GT-R-powered Q50. The car is named after a famous corner on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium, and Infiniti highlighted the connection with Red Bull in promotions.

But that was when Red Bull was dominating F1. Now the team is struggling, and it’s blaming the hybrid powertrains supplied by Infiniti parent Renault for its lack of success. A split between Infiniti and Red Bull seems likely, making the Q50 Eau Rouge’s F1 connotations problematic for the brand.

While the Eau Rouge may be dead, Infiniti may still build a sportier Q50. VP Bouille said Infiniti is mulling a performance sub-brand in the vein of AMG or BMW M, and that everything from a high-performance diesel to stripped-down lightweights is under consideration.

Topics

Stephen Edelstein

Contributing Editor

Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…

Cars

Audi halts vehicle deliveries to the U.S. as it mulls impact of tariffs

2021 Audi Q5

If you’d been thinking of buying an Audi, now might be the time. The German brand, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has announced it would halt shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all imported vehicles.
Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters.
Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive.
Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany.
Holding shipments is obviously a temporary measure to buy time for Audi and parent company Volkswagen. If tariffs stay in place, vehicle prices would likely have to go up accordingly, unless some production is shifted to the U.S. Volkswagen already has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is planning a new plant in South Carolina. That latter plant, however, isn’t expected to be operational until 2027 and is currently dedicated to building electric vehicles for VW’s Scout Motors brand.
Other global automakers have also taken drastic measures in response to Trump’s tariffs. Jaguar Land Rover on April 5 said it is pausing shipments of its its UK-made cars to the United States this month. The British sports-luxury vehicle maker noted that the U.S. market accounts for nearly a quarter of its global sales, led by the likes of Range Rover Sports, Defenders, and Jaguar F-PACE.
And on April 3, Nissan, the biggest Japanese vehicle exporter to the United States, announced it will stop taking new U.S. orders for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, the QX50 and QX55.

Cars

Waymo faces questions about its use of onboard cameras for AI training, ads targeting

Two people exit a Waymo taxi.

In an iconic scene from the 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, on-the-run Agent John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, struggles to walk through a mall as he’s targeted by a multitude of personalized ads from the likes of Lexus, Guinness and American Express, everytime hidden detectors identify his eyes.
It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future.
Yet, 23 years later that future is at least partlially here in the online world and threatens to spread to other areas of daily life which are increasingly ‘connected’, such as the inside of cars. And the new testing grounds, according to online security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, might very well be automated-driving vehicles, such as Waymo’s robotaxis.
On X, Wong unveiled an unreleased version of Waymo’s privacy policy that suggests the California-based company is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including interior cameras, to train generative AI models and to offer targetted ads.
“Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests,” the Waymo’s unreleased privacy statement reads. “You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.”
Asked for comments about the unreleased app update, Waymo told The Verge that it contained “placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose”.
Waymo’s AI-models “are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads,” spokesperson Julia Ilina said.
Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service.
The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says.
But as we all get used to ads targeting based on everything that’s somehow connected to the web, it seems a once-distant vision of the future may be just around the corner.

Cars

Waymo’s driverless cars are about to begin an overseas adventure

Waymo Jaguar I-Pace

Waymo’s autonomous cars are about to appear on streets outside of the U.S. for the first time.

The company on Wednesday announced on social media that its autonomous cars will be driving onto the streets of Tokyo, Japan, “soon,” with some reports suggesting the rollout will begin as early as next week.