Audi scraps confusing naming strategy

Audi has been forced to cancel plans to rename its entire model line-up following a backlash from customers and its dealers.

The brand’s tech boss, Oliver Hoffmann, announced back in September 2023 that EV’s would be identified by their even-numbered nameplates – i.e. A6 – while internal combustion and hybrid models would carry odd numbers.

Problems arose when the 31-year-old ‘A4’ nameplate was axed, with both the sedan and wagon renamed the ‘A5’, confusing both its existing owners and those new to the brand.

In response, the combustion-powered replacement for the A6 that was all set to become the A7 will now revert to its original badging policy and be called the A6.

To tell if a car is an EV, petrol or diesel or hybrid in the future, Audi will employ its old supplemental badges, with e-tron used to indicate a battery-powered vehicle, ‘TFSI’ a petrol, ‘TDI’ a diesel and ‘TFSI e’ for hybrids.

Despite the confusion and back-pedalling, Audi has confirmed it will not rename its new A5 as the A4, and instead keep to its original plan of reintroducing the A4 nameplate for an EV, claiming the model is smaller than the combustion-powered A5.

The electric Q4 e-tron and Q6 e-tron meantime will both remain EVs, while the combustion-powered mid-size SUV will keep its Q5 badge.

Incredibly, this is not the first time Audi has had to publicly scrap a controversial naming policy introduced to its vehicles.

Back in 2017 the German brand launched a strategy that saw the engine sizes dropped from rear boot lids, with 2.0 TDI, or 3.0 TFSI replaced with 35, 40, 50 and 55 – the higher the number, the more powerful the car.

Confusion again ensued and last year, Audi announced that it was moving away from the meaningless numbers back to the previous system but, again, announced it would rename existing models.

“This decision is the result of intensive discussions and also follows the wishes of our customers as well as feedback from our international dealers,” sales and marketing boss Marco Schubert said.

“Our nomenclature now provides all customers worldwide with an intuitive orientation in our portfolio. We choose the names of our models in a way that reveals size and positioning at first glance.”

As well scrapping the new naming strategy, Audi revealed that the new combustion-powered A6 will be launched on March 4.

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