Audi Admits It 'Needs to Get Back on Track Now'

It all starts with a "highly emotional sports car" known internally as the "TT Moment 2.0."

Photo by: Audi

Adrian Padeanu

By: Adrian Padeanu

Jul 25, 2025 at 4:54am ET

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It’s safe to say Audi isn’t in its best shape. Sales fell 11.8 percent last year to 1.67 million vehicles, and the first half of 2025 isn’t looking great either. Through June, shipments decreased by 5.9 percent to 783,000 cars compared to the first six months of 2024. However, the recent influx of new models should help turn things around and lure buyers from archrivals BMW and Mercedes, both of which are ahead in the luxury sales race. Vehicles like Q3, Q5, A5, and A6 are ready to pounce on the competition.

But Audi CEO Gernot Döllner candidly admits there’s a lot of work ahead. Speaking with German magazine Bild, Ingolstadt’s top brass declared: “I don't want to beat around the bush, we need to get back on track now.” Following a long drought of new models, he believes the worst is behind: “I think we are passing through the lowest point.”

During the same interview, Döllner promised a new era at Audi. This fall, a concept car seen as an “identity builder” will attempt to replicate the success of the iconic Tourist Trophy (TT). The man responsible for the fabled Four Rings said the mysterious vehicle is known internally as the “TT Moment 2.0” and that he firmly believes it will have a similar impact to the TT of the late 1990s and early 2010s: “I have a gut feeling that we are on the verge of such a TT moment.”

But it won’t be a fourth-generation TT or a return of the R8. Döllner described it as “something in between,” taking the shape of a “highly emotional sports car.” Although it will debut as a concept, a production version is planned within the next two years. It will be fully electric, but that doesn’t mean Audi is abandoning combustion engines. The company has already postponed its EV-only transition from 2032 to at least the middle of the next decade.

As for when we’ll see the concept, expect an official reveal in September at the IAA Mobility Show in Munich. It will represent a “new Audi” by adopting a fresh design language, next-generation technology, and more sophisticated hardware not used in previous models.

Döllner isn’t the first high-ranking official to admit mistakes were made. In an interview with our colleagues at Motor1 Germany earlier this year, Oscar da Silva Martins, Head of Product and Technology Communications, acknowledged quality has declined in recent years: “We have certainly been better in terms of quality in the past, but we will get there again.”

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Bild cites a Volkswagen Group board member calling Audi “our crisis case,” adding that the company’s products are only “okay – average.” The upcoming concept is unlikely to be an A8 successor, despite the flagship being overdue for replacement. Hopes had been pinned on the 2021 Grandsphere concept evolving into the next-gen A8, but that no longer appears to be the case.

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It’s worth noting the legacy brand now has a Chinese counterpart in the newly founded and confusingly named AUDI brand, which will sell only EVs, none bearing the traditional Four Rings logo. Featuring an oversized “AUDI” script, the E5 Sportback (pictured below) will be followed by additional electric models built and sold exclusively in China.