The halfway point in my Germany trip is marked with one main topic, the culmination of a week of company visits: Audi. As one of the German luxury car brands, Audi has a worldwide presence and a mightily impressive factory producing mightily impressive cars.
Audi has a storied history dating back over a century, but Audi as we know it was the merger of four smaller companies, each represented as one of the rings in Audi’s iconic 4-ringed logo. Today, Audi is owned by the Volkswagen group, and the Bentley, Ducati, and Lamborghini(!) brands are owned by Audi. But this tour focused on just Audi, but that’s okay. More than okay, because Audi makes amazing cars.
Audi’s lineup consists of mostly its sedan/wagon A-series and SUV Q-series, with a number from 1-8 denoting its size class, and the addition of S for sporty models, or RS for extra-sporty models. There is also the TT, a small sports coupe, the e-tron GT, Audi’s first foray into EVs, and the king of them all, the R8, which is a quarter-million dollar supercar with a V10 engine, the same one found in the Lamborghini Huracan. The factory we visited produces the A3, A4, and A5 (mid-sized sedans/wagons), and the Q2 (a small SUV, which I guess is just a crossover), and their respective S and RS variants. Even within the same model, there are different transmission, drivetrain, and powertrain options, so you could buy an AWD gas-powered manual model, an AWD hybrid automatic model, or a RWD fully electric model (although I’m not sure if these are produced at the factory I visited). Audi is planning to shift to only making electric cars in the not-too-distant future.
The assembly lines were so cool. Raw sheet metal was pressed into the shape of the body of the car, welded together, and then parts assembled in the basement, such as the entire powertrain from just the engine, were mated to the body, along with the suspension, interiors, seats, doors, wheels, and much more. The parts were sometimes assembled with manual help but robots did the heavy lifting for most of it, literally. The cars were picked up by huge cranes, and robots were capable of screwing 16 things in at the same time. At the end, the cars were tested on an internal test track, and then ready to be picked up right at the factory by the new lucky owner.
We also got to see a museum of Audis through the ages. I really wished I had taken photos but the program director went on and on about no phones in the factory tour, so I left my phone on the bus without knowing there would be a museum, and a showroom. I got to sit in various Audis, including the R8.
Audi is brisk in its plan to go fully electric. I think that overall this is a good move for the company, as demand for EVs is currently skyrocketing. However, I think there will be a few petrol diehards that will not switch to EVs no matter what, so Audi will be leaving a niche but rich market untapped. This is mostly due to legal reasons as many countries will ban the purchase of gas-powered vehicles by sometime in the 2030s, although even some forward-thinking European countries are making exceptions for low-volume vehicles or vehicles powered by synthetic carbon neutral fuels.