Introduction


Audi is a German automobile manufacturer which ahs its headquarters in Ingolstadt in Bavaria. The Audi brand is a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group since the year 1964. The German tagline of Audi in Germany is Vorsprung Durch Technik which simply translates to “Advancement through Technology”. In America the tagline is “Never Follow”.

History

The company has its origins in the year 1899 under the leadership of August Horch. The first Horch automobile was manufactured in the year 1901 in Zwickau. However in 1910, Horch had to resign from his company and he founded his own company under the Horch brand. However he was sued for using the name by his former partners and his partners won the case in court. Hence he held up a meeting with his family members and other members from outside to suggest a name and he came up with the name of Audi. He liked the name very much and hence he decided to keep it. The name was finally adopted in the meeting. The full form of Audi is “Auto Union Deutschland Ingolstadt”. At present, Audio produces over 2 million cars annually. The main production takes place in the plant in Ingolstadt and there is also another production plant in Neckarsulm.




Models

The first model of Audi was the Audi 100 which was on sale in 1968. Soon the Audi 80 and the Audi 50 were launched in 1972 and 1974 respectively. Audi was then thinking of a proposal to launch a four wheel drive car as well as rally cars. Audi introduced the Quattro in 1980 which was a rally racing car. Large scale production of this car was undertaken at the plant. The name Audi soon became synonymous with automotive technology. In 1986, the company introduced the Passat based Audi 80 which was a huge hit. In 1987, the company introduced the new Audi 90 which had very good features that were far more superior to any of the models introduced before.


However there was a decline in sales in US when people found out that the car used to accelerate a little when the brakes were applied. However sales did not decline in Europe as the drivers in Europe were better in manual transmission. Audi then introduced the new A4 in the US which was a very big hit.



In the past few years, the sales of Audi have been phenomenal in Europe. In 2004 alone, Audi sold 779,441 vehicles worldwide. There were very good sales from Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Audi then also ventured into Asian markets like India in March 2005 where it plans to open two new dealerships.


Technology
Today the company uses a full computerized system for manufacturing its cars. The cars include additional features like a satellite navigation system, control knob for radio and heating and car controls with the touch of a screen. All the vehicles of Audi are 100% galvanized to prevent any type of corrosion. The full zinc body has gone a long way in preventing corrosion perforation. The company has in fact extended its corrosion resistant warranty to 12 years from 10 years. In 1994, the Audi 8 was launched which introduced the space frame technology. Audi continued to introduce new series of vehicle right through the nineties.


The company launched the Audi 2 in 2001; however the model was stopped in 2005 because the costs of producing an all aluminum car proved to be very costly. In 2005, Audi launched the RS4 salon in competition with BMW’s M division cars. It has won the competition over BMW. The car has a 4.2 litre V8 engine with 414 bhp horse power. The car can reach 100 km/h in just under five seconds and it has a top speed of 250 km/hr. Hence we see that Audi believes in innovation so that it can provide better and faster cars to all its customers across the world.