About Audi

Audi AG is a German automobile manufacturer with headquarters in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, and has been an almost wholly owned (99.7%) subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group since 1964. The company evolved from Auto Union, NSU, Horch and DKW, the former having incorporated the historic Audi company which was founded in 1910.

Audi's German tagline is "Vorsprung durch Technik", meaning "Advancement Through Technology". The German language tagline is also used in other European countries, such as the UK, and in other markets, such as Latin America, Oceania and parts of Asia including Japan. The American and Canadian tagline is "Truth in Engineering".

Models

Current models

• A3
• A4
• A5
• A6
• A8
• Q7
• Allroad Quattro
• RS4
• RS6
• R8
• S3
• S4
• S5
• S6
• S8
• TT

Hybrid vehicles

Audi Duo

The original Audi Duo was created in 1989 and was based on the Audi C3 100 Avant. It was a gas/electric hybrid concept vehicle.

Audi Duo II

Little is known about the Audi Duo II. It was based on the Audi C4 100/A6 Avant and made sometime in the early to mid 1990's.

Audi Duo III

The Audi Duo III was introduced in 1997 based off of the Audi B5 A4 Avant and was the only Duo to ever make it into production. The Duo III used the 1.9L TDI engine which produced coupled with an 29 hp electric motor. There was a switch inside the cabin for switching between the electric motor and the engine. The batteries would be recharged during highway/country driving or by plugging the car into an AC outlet.

The hybrid was unable to achieve fuel efficiency much greater than the standard 1.9L TDI because of the extra weight the batteries added.

Unfortunately there was little demand for the hybrid due to it's high price, and thus only about sixty Audi Duo's were produced. Up until the release of the Audi Q7 hybrid, the Duo was the only European hybrid ever put into production.

Audi Q7 3.6 FSI Hybrid

Audi unveiled their Q7 hybrid at the 2005 Frankfurt Motor Show. Audi plans to have the Q7 hybrid as a part of their 2008 model line up.

Audi metroproject quattro

In the third quarter of 2007, just before its official announcement at the Tokyo Motor Show, Audi leaked information about "metroproject quattro." The metroproject quattro is a sub-compact intented to compete with the Mini Cooper.

Under the hood is a 150 hp 1.4L TFSI engine. However, in the back of the car, beneath a plexiglass peephole, is a 41 hp electric motor designed to create a zero-emissions driving experience in residential or city areas and increase torque while the 1.4 TFSI is accelerating.

A lithium-ion battery pack supports a range of up to 100 km (62 miles). In electric mode, the car has a top speed of more than 100 km/h (62 mph).

Discontinued models

• 50
• Audi and Audi 60/72/75/80/Super 90
• 80/90/4000/Coupé/Cabriolet
• 100/200/5000
• A2
• Quattro
• RS2
• S2
• UrS4/S6
• V8

Racing models

• Sport Quattro
• R8
• R10 (current model)
• Sport

Prototypes and concept cars

• A1
• A7
• Allroad Quattro Concept
• Avantissimo
• Avus Quattro
• Le Mans Quattro
• Nuvolari Quattro
• Pikes Peak Quattro
• Q3
• Q5
• Roadjet
• RSQ (from I, Robot)
• Shooting Brake
• Audi R-Zero

The modern era of Audi

The new merged company was known as "Audi NSU Auto Union AG", and saw the emergence of Audi as a separate brand for the first time since the pre-war era. Volkswagen introduced the Audi brand to the United States for the 1970 model year.

The first new car of this regime was the Audi 100 of 1968. This was soon joined by the Audi 80/Fox (which formed the basis for the 1973 Volkswagen Passat) in 1972 and the Audi 50 (later rebadged as the Volkswagen Polo) in 1974. The 50 was a seminal design in many ways, because it was the first incarnation of the Golf/Polo concept, one that led to a hugely successful world car.

The Audi image at this time was a conservative one, and so, a proposal from chassis engineer Jörg Bensinger was accepted to develop the four-wheel drive technology in Volkswagen's Iltis military vehicle for an Audi performance car and rally racing car. The performance car, introduced in 1980, was named the "quattro," a turbocharged coupé which was also the first German large-scale production vehicle to feature permanent all-wheel drive through a center differential (not counting the earlier British Jensen FF, produced in small numbers). Commonly referred to as the "Ur-Quattro" (the "Ur-" prefix is a German augmentative used, in this case, to mean "original" and is also applied to the first generation of Audi's S4 and S6 sport sedans, as in "UrS4" and "UrS6"), few of these vehicles were produced (all hand-built by a single team) but the model was a great success in rallying. Prominent wins proved the viability of all-wheel drive racecars, and the Audi name became associated with advances in automotive technology.

In 1985, with the Auto Union and NSU brands effectively dead, the company's official name was now shortened to simply "Audi AG".

In 1986, as the Passat-based Audi 80 was beginning to develop a kind of "grandfather's car" image, the type 89 was introduced. This completely new development sold extremely well. However, its modern and dynamic exterior belied the low performance of its base engine, and its base package was quite spartan (even the passenger-side mirror was an option.) In 1987, Audi put forward a new and very elegant Audi 90, which had a much superior set of standard features. In the early nineties, sales began to slump for the Audi 80 series, and some basic construction problems started to surface.

This decline in sales was not helped in the USA by a 60 Minutes report which purported to show that Audi automobiles suffered from "unintended acceleration". The 60 Minutes report was based on customer reports of acceleration when the brake pedal was pushed. Independent investigators concluded that this was most likely due to a close placement of the accelerator and brake pedals (unlike American cars), and the inability, when not paying attention, to distinguish between the two. (In race cars, when manually downshifting under heavy braking, the accelerator has to be used in order to match revs properly, so both pedals have to be close to each other to be operated by the right foot at once, toes on the brake, heel on the accelerator; a driving technique called heel-and-toe). This did not become an issue in Europe, possibly due to more widespread experience among European drivers with manual transmissions.

60 Minutes ignored this fact and rigged a car to perform in an uncontrolled manner. The report immediately crushed Audi sales, and Audi renamed the affected model (The 5000 became the 100/200 in 1989, as it was elsewhere). Audi had contemplated withdrawing from the American market until sales began to recover in the mid-1990s. The turning point for Audi was the sale of the new A4 in 1996, and with the release of the A4/6/8 series, which was developed together with VW and other sister brands (so called "platforms").

In the early part of this century, Audi set forth on a German racetrack to claim and maintain several World Records, such as Top Speed Endurance. This effort was in-line with the company's heritage from the 1930's racing era "Siver Arrows".

Currently, Audi's sales are growing strongly in Europe. 2004 marked the 11th straight increase in sales, selling 779,441 vehicles worldwide. Record figures were recorded from 21 out of about 50 major sales markets. The largest sales increases came from Eastern Europe (+19.3%), Africa (+17.2%) and the Middle East (+58.5%). In March of 2005, Audi is building its first two dealerships in India following its high increase in sales in the region.

Audi has recently started offering a computerised control system for its cars called Multi Media Interface (MMI). This comes amid criticism of BMW's iDrive control, essentially a rotating control knob designed to control radio, satellite navigation, TV, heating and car controls with a screen. MMI has been widely reported to be an improvement on BMW's iDrive. (BMW has since made their iDrive more user friendly.)

MMI has been generally well-received, as it requires less menu-surfing with its mass of buttons around a central knob, with shortcuts to the radio or phone functions. The screen, either colour or monochrome, is mounted on the upright dashboard, and on the A6 and A8, the controls are mounted horizontally. However, an "MMI Like" system is also available on the Audi A3 and A4 models when equipped with the optional Navigation System.