- Audi admits renaming A4 to A5 confused both customers and dealers.
- Brand plans return to simpler naming based on car size not engine type.
- Electric A4 e-tron sedan is due later this with Concept C styling cues.
A couple of years ago, Audi cooked up a grand plan where gas and diesel cars would wear odd numbers and EVs would get even ones. But the automaker now admits that wasn’t such a genius moment after all, and hints that the classic A4 badge could be heading back from exile to a combustion car soon.
The odd vs even number strategy sounds tidy on a whiteboard, but in real life, it meant the long-running A4 sedan and wagon suddenly became A5 models, a name previously used for coupes and Sportbacks. That shift confused care buyers and frustrated the salespeople who had to deal with them.
Related: Audi Ditches Odd-Even Naming Plan For ICE And EVs After Buyers Bamboozled
Audi CEO Gernot Döllner has now openly called the move, rubber-stamped by his predecessor, a mistake. Speaking to Australia’s Drive at the Munich motor show, he said the brand will return to its traditional system where “A is for flat-floor cars, Q is for SUVs, and then the number describes the size of the car or the segment of the car.”
A4 Facelift and Namelift
Audi U-turned after turning the A4 into an A5, but in time to prevent the A6 from making the same switch. And now Döllner says that rebranding the ICE A5 as an A4 is “thinkable.” That strongly hints the current combustion-powered A5 (seen below) could wear A4 badges when it gets its mid-life update, probably in the next couple of years.
Electric A4 On the Horizon
But while the gas-powered car may revert to A4, Audi is also planning a fully electric A4 e-tron for the 2028 model year, seen below in our artist’s impression. As we’ve reported before, that car is expected to ride on the new Scalable Systems Platform and take design cues from the dramatic Concept C show car.
So in a few years, you could have an A4 with a combustion engine and an A4 that plugs in, a strategy that will be mirrored at BMW and Mercedes with the 3-Series and C-Class. BMW has it slightly easier on the naming front, since it plans to use the i3 badge for the EV, though that comes with its own complications, given the name was already used for an electric hatchback not too long ago.
This isn’t the first time Audi has fessed to making a badging boo-boo. A few years back, it abandoned its traditional engine size-based model names for ones like ’35’ and ’55’ that buyers also found confusing, but it has now backtracked on that decision.
