Audi Will Soon Reveal A Sports Car To Give The Brand Its Groove Back

Things at Audi aren’t great, the company’s CEO said in a surprisingly candid recent interview. The automaker needs to change, he said, and it plans to do it very soon.

It won’t change with just words, though; Audi will do it starting with a new model. “An identity builder,” the CEO said. The new car is being referred to internally as “TT Moment 2.0,” recalling the importance of the first Audi TT on the brand and how it transformed its fortunes over the following decades.

Audi’s CEO Is Blunt And Serious

“I don’t want to beat around the bush, we have to turn things around now,” Audi CEO Gernot Döllner told German newspaper Bild. He describes the company’s current state in a dire way. No new relevant models for three years, software problems, autonomous driving backlogs, and up to 7,500 jobs cut by 2029.

Döllner, though, has a plan. “We’re making decisions based on the product again – every day,” he said. The automaker has slashed an entire level of management, cut its 130 committees to 35, and more. “Audi must become a different company. We can’t develop the cars of tomorrow in yesterday’s structures,” Döllner said.

A massive step in that process is the new model. Just before the IAA show in Munich this September, Audi plans to reveal a car that is being described as embodying everything that defines the new Audi.

He called that new car “TT Moment 2.0,” though the name is an homage. “I have a gut feeling that we’re on the verge of such a TT moment,” he said, likening the new model to the massive impact that the original sports car had on the brand.

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Better yet, “the car will be built,” he said. It’s set to launch in two years. He called it “a highly emotional sports car – not a TT, not an R8, but something in between,” and said that it will be fully electric.

But though this car will be electric, Audi isn’t ending combustion for another decade. Döllner has pushed that back to at least 2035, saying “We have to play this transition phase properly.”

Yes, There Is A Plan

Döllner wants Audi to catch up in China by matching the ultra-fast development and high technological level of the country’s domestic market, but calls it a challenge. The brand is facing problems in the US that it won’t even be able to begin to address until “the customs situation is clear.”

Crucially, though, Döllner understands image is key to revitalizing Audi. He wants more clarity in design and more fun in its advertising. He also plans to remain in motorsport, saying “our brand lives in motorsport.” He hopes Audi will be fighting for the title in F1 in 2030.

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A big part of Döllner’s changes involve setting more attainable goals. The company is no longer going to chase three million sales a year, something that seems impossible now after it has fallen to 1.7 million in 2024 and is dropping this year. Döllner said Audi will need to work towards a more reasonable goal. “We want to achieve disproportionate growth in earnings quality and revenue per vehicle,” he said. “Two million vehicles is realistic.”

Source: Bild