Abstract powertrain badging didn't work with customers and nor has separating out ICE and EV model names
News that Audi has abandoned split model names for combustion and electric models represents the second time in a year that it has changed its cars' names.
Both times it has been for the better, reversing misguided decisions that confused in the first place.
The latest is to wind back on a decision that would have ICE cars (even plug-in hybrids) assigned odd model numbers and EVs even model numbers.
Customers were baffled by it. Instead, it will be: the bigger the number, the bigger the car. Much more easily understood. Mostly how it used to be.
Another less noted change from Audi began last March, to gradually remove an assignation on power output, which has since 2017 been annotated by a number ranging from 30 to 70 depending on how beefy the car is – the least powerful at the lower end of the range, the most at the top.
That meant that what once upon a time was an unpowerful Q2 1.6 TDI became the Q2 30 TDI, for example.
The idea was a workaround of the fact that cars of the same engine capacity could have different power outputs; that hybrids could have more power than their small capacities would suggest; and that EVs had no engine capacity at all.
But it also registered not a bit with customers.
So if you’re looking to buy a petrol Q2 today, it might be a 35 TFSI and people will ask you if it has a 3.5-litre engine when they see it, but the latest A5 saloon just has a power denomination.
The A5, incidentally, is the ICE variant of the upcoming A4 EV, but these two will keep their separate model identities.
So at the moment, Audi has some models with a power output noted by a 30-70 range and some with a PS (metric horsepower) output, while its model names are mostly noted by size, except when they’re not. Yikes.
I suspect that had Audi taken a straw poll of its dealers, its factory workers or the streets of Ingolstadt before making its initial changes, it wouldn’t have made them in the first place.
Eventually, though, this will all pan out more sensibly, more in line with how it used to be. Good thing, too.
