The Future Of Audi Glimpsed

Parachuted in from F1, the new boss admits audi needs to catch up with Tesla’s software genius

- Gavin Green

WHEN YOU WANT fast thinking and a lack of bureaucracy in the car world, turn to Formula 1. Which is precisely what Audi, desperate to be world leader in the fast-moving world of EVs, has done. Its new CEO, Markus Duesmann, is the former head of engine development at the Mercedes-AMG F1 team.

The man Duesmann has hired to head up the new Artemis project, which should take Audi and the whole Volkswagen Group to the sunny uplands of electronic and software expertise, is Alex Hitzinger, former chief development engineer at Cosworth F1, at Red Bull F1 and for Porsche’s successful Le Mans campaign in 2015-17. He also worked for Apple, where he ran its autonomous car project until 2019.

Duesmann’s job is to out-Tesla Tesla and bring back Audi’s Vorsprung. He admits they are two years behind Tesla in terms of computing and software architecture. Audi’s first all-electric car, the e-tron SUV, was also behind many other EVs in weight, space, range and overall energy efficiency, including Jaguar’s (older) i-Pace. The new e-tron GT, based closely on the Porsche Taycan, is a step in the right direction.

Duesmann has also been tasked with making the Bavarian company more nimble and, in many ways, more like a Silicon Valley tech company than a traditional German car maker. That won’t be easy. “We want Audi, again, to be in the lead in technology,” he says. “We’re very strong in hardware but we need to catch up in software, which is becoming more and more important in vehicle functionality. And we will.”