An Audi lifer has produced a heartfelt yet scathing film about everything he loved and now hates about the Four Rings brand. Yes, that’s past-tense love and present-day hate. Or dismay, disappointment, disbelief, and even confusion. Based on the video’s 3,500-plus comments, he’s not alone.
“Speak up for Audi is a film for and by the automaker’s very strong community of owners, enthusiasts, collectors, and fans,” is the film description’s first line. The anonymous creator, Auditography, shares his credentials — from drawing the cars as a boy and buying his first Audi after university (an A4) to working as a professional photographer for the brand and growing his personal Audi collection. He adds:
My relationship with Audi is engraved in my bones and heart. For me, it’s not a brand. It’s a lifestyle.
In the past 7 years, Audi has been making more and more questionable decisions and lately it has really gone downhill. It seems like they completely lost their identity. More and more people started to speak up, but felt like they were screaming out in thin air.
I started to build up more and more feelings, disappointment, and anger inside of me that they didn’t care about their owners and fans at all.
Those frustrations culminated in an hour-long ode to more than a dozen “decisions” the German luxury brand has made. The derision is polite but straightforward, while the delivery is a polished package of historical content (his childhood drawings and scrapbooks!) and what’s likely his own images and videos produced for Audi or personal use.
Speak up for Audi is impressive in its organization and arguments, which are supported by documented complaints from Audi enthusiasts. For example, badging and logo changes take up 10 minutes of the 70-minute film. But instead of being another car guy yelling at clouds, messages and posts from others related to the changes are overlayed. And everyone’s pretty upset. At the 5:10 mark, Auditography says:
Badges are one of the most precious things for an Audi owner, especially when it comes to S and RS models. So how Audi has butchered this important topic is beyond my understanding…
The removal of the front badges on the S and RS models is probably the worst decision in the company’s history. Together with a fake exhaust.
Auditography says he is all for brand evolution but not at the expense of passion, attention to detail, and dismissal of a brand’s heritage. The road Audi is traveling down is one that is uninspired and leaves the brand without its distinctive character.
There is hope, however. The automaker changed course on the Audi Sport badging and has even backpedaled on its naming strategy, which no one could make sense of. To Auditography’s point:
Sometimes, to go forward, you need to go back. Look back and remember what made Audi such a [beloved] brand, and what made us choose their cars over others.
Now, regardless of whether Audi takes any of this to heart, the brand does need to do something. Sales declined in 2024 and have continued to slide into 2025. Through June, sales are down 12%. Audi CEO Gernot Döllner is also allegedly at the center of some corporate infighting. Hmm, maybe this calls for a larger bucket of popcorn.
My sister got a Q5 a few years ago. She was smart and also got the prepaid maintenance plan. Now that the maintenance plan is about to run out, she’s shopping for something else. I’m guessing she might go for a Lexus SUV, since her family has driven Toyotas for 25+ years.
I feel like some people have a very distorted image of premium manufacturers in their heads. Audi, and all the others are foremost nothing more than makers of somewhat pricier, somewhat nicer cars, that will be used the same way as you use an everyday Corolla.
Thinking about publishing a truly hot take about how Car Company X used to make incredible cars that also just so happened to be produced during a time in my life when I was young and had no worries, but now that I’m older and do have worries, Car Company X has lost their way and makes universal garbage.
I’ve researched this extensively and found that these two things are completely unrelated. The actual culprit is woke.
Audi should revert to their late sixties model names – just the horsepower of the car, as in Audi 60 or Audi 72 or Audi 90. Simple and honest and no room for confusion.
So, an Allroad should be an Audi 221 or Audi 335 depending on the engine….Right.
Just trying to show that Audi were never as intelligent as they made themselves out to be…
they are all MOBILITY CORPORATIONS today. they do not make cars. they sell subscriptions to move your ass from A to B. they sell you monthly safety features so when you change your credit card and bank takes a crap, do not get surprised that all of the sudden your butt is cold and adaptive cruise is no longer available when you are flying into a ditch.
I’ve owned Audis since the early 70’s, and right now I have two A4 Allroads in my driveway, a 2017 and a 2018. All of my Audis have been dead reliable, never leaving me stranded or costing big money to service (and one of mine was a 2004 A6 Allroad, supposedly the worst car ever built). So when people talk about unreliability, I wonder what exactly they did (or didn’t do) to make the cars that way. Sure, they need routine maintenance, but no more than any other cars I’ve owned. I always buy them lightly used because you get a lot more value for your bux that way…..
But to the video, he has a lot of valid points – leaving the badging aside for the moment – the cars are being built cheaper and they look it, the interiors DO look like they came from a low spec manufacturer, that steering wheel is atrocious, the front rings look so cheap, and I do think they’ve become pretty generic looking, probably because the chief designer who was making all those great looking cars went over to Hyundai, and now they have some really ground breaking designs.
We considered getting a newer one, but when we went to look at them were turned off by many of the factors he cites in his video. 2019 was the last Audi made before the “screen-ageddon” happened, anything newer than that would not get my vote – or money.
The bride thinks we may have one more new car purchase left in our future, but I have no idea what we would buy as nothing currently made by any manufacturer impresses me in the least. I’ll stay with our current Audis for the foreseeable future
laughs in Username
I own and love an older 3.0t A6, and while it was in for scheduled service recently, I was given a 2024 A3 loaner.
I could not believe the same company made both cars. The A3 was slow, harsh, numb, and cramped to the point of discomfort. It was one of the worst cars I’ve driven in recent years. I’d be ashamed to sell it if I was Audi. My wife’s Mazda 3 is vastly better in every way, for less money.
I can’t speak for their other models, but if the A3 is anything to go by, they truly have lost their way.
Hmmmm. Reminds me of my beloved Saab. My issue is: over engineered German garbage. Plus when a new Mercedes looks like an older Camry and BMW decided to follow Lexus in the front end as alien trope: yikes. Then there is VW. What exactly is a VW? The people’s car at 40k+. And they are fugly and seem to have given their vaunted longevity to Toyota? And to be clear an Audi is an AWD tarted up VW.
Ok I’m not necessarily an expert, yesterday I drove to the supermarket in my 1999 Lexus and parked next to a Fiat 500. It looked like the car I wanted 40 years ago. I immediately put it on my list of used to buy soon. Sadly for me I must give up one to get another one as I like being married
This reminds me of the sci-fi tropes about forming relationships with robots/Ai/tech entity. In this case, the technology isn’t nearly as intelligent, but the effect appears to be similar. Someone has gone so far with their interactions that they appear to have lost perspective on the purpose of the entity and now they’re encountering hard facts that don’t reconcile with the emotional expectations they’ve set up for themselves.
And I don’t think the issue originates with Audi as much as it does with enthusiasts using Audi to explore the paradox of hedonism through their as others have said, unchecked consumerism
My 22 year old daughter would call this ‘toxic fandom’