Audi to play numbers game with engine names

Under-fire German car-maker Audi is leaving reality behind and marching headlong into a confusing new model naming structure.

The new naming system, which is about to spread across all Audi models from the A1 up to the Q7, will move the brand towards two-digit names and away from badges that give an indication of the actual engine size.

In their place will be badges that are stepped in line with engine power outputs, without actually identifying what those power outputs will be.

The core names of each model will remain unchanged, so the badges from A1 upwards will still sit on the back of each Audi.

The sub-badges will change a lot, though. Traditionally, Audi has put 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 badges on 2.0-litre four-cylinder, 3.0-litre six-cylinder and 4.0-litre eight-cylinder engines respectively.

They will begin to disappear gradually as each new model rolls through, starting with the all-new A8 this October and rolling through the brand by the middle of next year.

Audi suggests the new naming structure is preparing people for the time when electrified powertrains make the car’s system power more important than its combustion-engine capacity.

The new system relates to each car’s power output in kiloWatts, starting with '30' for cars with between 81 and 96kW of power. The names climb from there to 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60 and 70, depending on the power range, with 70 denoting Audis with more than 400kW of system power.

Thankfully, the go-faster Audi Sport brand is immune from the new nomenclature, so its S, RS and R8 models will continue with their existing badge structure for the foreseeable future.

The first car to ring in the change will be the next-generation A8, which will switch out the A8 3.0 TDI badge for one that says A8 50 TDI, while the petrol-powered A8 3.0 TFSI will be ditched for A8 55 TFSI.

New Badge               Power range
30                               81-91kW
35                               110-120kW
40                               125-150kW
45                               169-185kW
50                               210-230kW
55                               245-275kW
60                               320-340kW
70                               400kW or more

The new badges will sit on the back of Audi’s cars alongside the power system badge, so 'TFSI' for a turbo-petrol engine, 'TDI' for a turbo-diesel, 'g-tron' for a natural gas-powered machine or 'e-tron' for a plug-in hybrid or full battery-electric car.

“As alternative drive technologies become increasingly relevant, engine displacement as a performance attribute is becoming less important to our customers,” Audi’s board member in charge of sales and marketing, Dr Dietmar Voggenreiter, insisted.

“The clarity and logic of structuring the designations according to power output makes it possible to distinguish between the various performance levels.”

Sure, it does.

As confusing as this might be, it could always be worse if you think about it too hard. Both '45' and '55' are registered as AMG badge names, with the Mercedes-Benz hotshop using the former on three four-cylinder turbo models and the latter used on mid-to-large V8 supercharged models two generations ago.

Hyundai’s luxury brand, Genesis, is about to launch its mid-sized model, the G 70.

BMW already essentially does the same thing as Audi, except that the first of its three-digit numbers designates the model size. The rest is the power output, sort of. For example, the 340i isn’t a 4.0-litre engine, but has a power output BMW thinks people will equate to a 4.0-litre engine, even though it’s a 3.0-litre engine.

Mercedes-Benz long ago strayed from the path of using accurate capacity badging on its cars, even going so far as to berate media outlets for calling the 6208cc V8 engine in its last-generation E 63 AMG a “6.2-litre engine” instead of the 6.3 litres it claimed in its official information.

But the Audi system promises to be more confusing than most of those, not least because of the holes between the power output ranges.