How Gernot Döllner got Audi back on track
From readjusting model names to reintroducing ICEs, Audi's boss has spent two years unpicking strange decisions At a time of unprecedented change within and pressure on the automotive industry, having three CEOs in a little over five years will do strange things to a firm. Gernot Döllner has been in Audi’s top job for almost two years and has spent a fair chunk of that time unpicking some reactionary and occasionally bizarre decisions of predecessors. His reversal of the previous decision to end the development and sale of combustion engines was an obvious move. There was also a victory for common sense when he cancelled a plan to rename Audis with odd and even numbers based on their powertrains. The “only mistake was that we maybe changed it a couple of months too late”, Döllner told me in reference to the new A4 being named A5 too close to production for it to be reversed. Expect that to be corrected by the mid-life facelift. He is also keen to put Audi’s software woes behind it and refers to the Vorsprung durch Technik phrase as a guiding light for its development here too. Software issues delayed the Q6 E-tron and Döllner admitted it “got stuck in the pipeline”. That bottleneck is why so many new Audis are now being launched in a short time – 20 in two years. Two models per year is his goal when it settles down. Audi’s range has grown exponentially this century, sometimes at the expense of the sharpness of the brand itself. Döllner doesn’t want to stand still in volume terms but would rather growth came “in quality and revenue per car rather than absolute sales”. The company is no longer striving to be the biggest premium brand and Döllner is happy for Audi to be “the challenger” against the likes of BMW and Mercedes and “the progressive choice”. He is also overhauling Audi’s development team to ensure faster product development, alongside 7500 job cuts over the next two years to make Audi a leaner operation. Given this focus on brand, eyebrows were raised when Audi recently introduced a new brand for China wearing an AUDI logo rather than the four rings and based on the platform of a Chinese EV from SAIC. Döllner said Audi acknowledges the risk but he is “quite sure this sister brand will stay in China” and the approach is right as it is a “Chinese product in a Chinese ecosystem… that appears for quite specific Chinese customers”. Such growth overall has made it hard to work out what the core of Audi is. When asked what he thought the ‘core’ Audi model is (it’s the Golf for Volkswagen and the 911 for Porsche, for example), he listed several cars. Audi still awaits its staple model, yet Vorsprung durch Technik remains the thing that links the Audi eras. So there’s still much to work through as Audi finds its way again, but Döllner is “sure you will soon see a very different company”.
From readjusting model names to reintroducing ICEs, Audi's boss has spent two years unpicking strange decisions
At a time of unprecedented change within and pressure on the automotive industry, having three CEOs in a little over five years will do strange things to a firm.
Gernot Döllner has been in Audi’s top job for almost two years and has spent a fair chunk of that time unpicking some reactionary and occasionally bizarre decisions of predecessors.
His reversal of the previous decision to end the development and sale of combustion engines was an obvious move. There was also a victory for common sense when he cancelled a plan to rename Audis with odd and even numbers based on their powertrains.
The “only mistake was that we maybe changed it a couple of months too late”, Döllner told me in reference to the new A4 being named A5 too close to production for it to be reversed. Expect that to be corrected by the mid-life facelift.
He is also keen to put Audi’s software woes behind it and refers to the Vorsprung durch Technik phrase as a guiding light for its development here too.
Software issues delayed the Q6 E-tron and Döllner admitted it “got stuck in the pipeline”. That bottleneck is why so many new Audis are now being launched in a short time – 20 in two years. Two models per year is his goal when it settles down.
Audi’s range has grown exponentially this century, sometimes at the expense of the sharpness of the brand itself. Döllner doesn’t want to stand still in volume terms but would rather growth came “in quality and revenue per car rather than absolute sales”.
The company is no longer striving to be the biggest premium brand and Döllner is happy for Audi to be “the challenger” against the likes of BMW and Mercedes and “the progressive choice”.
He is also overhauling Audi’s development team to ensure faster product development, alongside 7500 job cuts over the next two years to make Audi a leaner operation.
Given this focus on brand, eyebrows were raised when Audi recently introduced a new brand for China wearing an AUDI logo rather than the four rings and based on the platform of a Chinese EV from SAIC.
Döllner said Audi acknowledges the risk but he is “quite sure this sister brand will stay in China” and the approach is right as it is a “Chinese product in a Chinese ecosystem… that appears for quite specific Chinese customers”.
Such growth overall has made it hard to work out what the core of Audi is. When asked what he thought the ‘core’ Audi model is (it’s the Golf for Volkswagen and the 911 for Porsche, for example), he listed several cars. Audi still awaits its staple model, yet Vorsprung durch Technik remains the thing that links the Audi eras.
So there’s still much to work through as Audi finds its way again, but Döllner is “sure you will soon see a very different company”.
