Audi has spent the last two years overhauling its entire product lineup in the face of one of the auto industry's most uncertain periods. But earlier this year, everything changed. Following a significant shift away from electrification, the VW Group and, in turn, Audi, has had to rethink the way it does things. But as it turns out, Audi was already one step ahead, and under the leadership of CEO Gernot Döllner, Audi's embarked on a mission to recapture the spirit of Vorsprung Durch Technik that once saw it thrive against BMW and Mercedes.At a recent media roundtable in Munich, CarBuzz pressed Döllner about the brand's ambitions to become a technological leader once more, recapturing the pioneering spirit that enabled it to break into the US market with quattro all-wheel drive. His answers were cause for excitement for Audi fans.Audi Can Audi Stop Being A Follower And Start Being A Leader Again? "That's definitely my ambition," says Döllner, highlighting his history as a vehicle concept engineer before becoming CEO. But it won't happen overnight, something he quickly reminded us of. "But we have to be very, very honest. It's a long journey, but we are on that journey, step by step, to find our way back [to the top]."Last year, Audi filed 1,912 patents with the DPMA (German intellectual property office), the fourth most of any company in Germany. Audi announced this figure during its annual press conference, taking great pride in its return to the top spots on that list, citing that it had languished in ninth place in 2024. Audi may still have had fewer filings than BMW and Mercedes-Benz, but at the time, Döllner stated it was "a strong sign Audi is back in the game when it comes to progress."AudiIn response to our questions in Munich, Döllner told the media, "There's much more to come," but cautioned that the fruits of Audi's labor may not be imminently visible. "Talking about the patents, it takes some time to bring them to the road." One of the first fruits arrives soon, though, with the new RS 5 Sedan's active torque vectoring differential being the first of its kind and something Döllner says has "a lot of vorsprung durch technik" baked into it.Our driving impressions of the RS 5 go live later this week, but Döllner says this is a sign of what's to come, and "you will see [stuff like] that, step by step, more and more from the Audi brand." Quattro To Remain The Audi Crown Jewel Quattro was once the hallmark of the brand at a time when other all-wheel-drive systems were entirely inferior, and Döllner told us during the roundtable that the system is only going to evolve to new heights."Quattro is, beneath RS, one of our strongest sub-brands. It's really at the core of Audi, and we will bring quattro to new levels in the future. If you look at the RS 5, we have a sporty, rear-dominant quattro that you have never seen before from Audi, and there are a lot more ideas and real-world innovations in the pipeline that I can promise will have next-level quattro from Audi."- Gernot Döllner, Audi CEOHe wouldn't be drawn into detailing what those innovations might be, admitting "it's a little too early to talk about that," but he confirmed quattro development is "one of our true innovation fields for the brand." The F1 Effect On Audi Engineering AudiF1 will also play a part, but not with direct trickle-down technology. Instead, Döllner believes it will be the mindset and spirit of Formula 1 that permeates Audi's road-going model development. "To be honest, you can bring some ideas from energy recovery to series production cars, you can bring lightweight topics, you can bring braking technologies, but you have to be honest there, too. You won’t bring one technical detail from a Formula 1 car to a series production car."The more important thing is to bring the mindset and the spirit of Formula 1 to the Audi brand," he told us, claiming that since the brand entered F1, there's been an excitement among the road car engineers, too. "It really ignited something within Audi, entering Formula 1, and it inspired our engineers. That's the biggest effect I can see right now." A Mad Scientist To Pioneer A New World Of Audi Technology Audi/CarBuzzDöllner might be the head of the business, but despite his history as an engineer, he can't be developing everything himself. Fortunately, the brand has installed a mad scientist to head up the brand's innovation in the form of Rouven Mohr. Mohr was formerly chief technical officer at Lamborghini - which is owned by Audi in the broader VW Group umbrella - but was announced as Audi's CTO in February this year.At Lamborghini, he was responsible for developing innovations like the plug-in hybrid powertrain that supports the combustion engines in the Revuelto and Temerario, a brand-new transverse dual-clutch automatic that features in both, and the 10,000-rpm twin-turbo V8 engine in the Temerario. And those are just the headline developments that have reached production status. Innovations like active camber control are still incoming.Well, Mohr is a bit of an Audi fan, having previously commissioned a heavily modified Audi Coupe GTO and spent plenty of time driving tuned Audis of all power levels. He's a dyed-in-the-wool enthusiast and a remarkable engineer in his own right, and if anyone is the right choice to change Audi from the inside, it's him. Fortunately, Döllner is equally passionate, and the two of them are intent on restoring Audi to the technological leader it once was.
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