Ladies and gentlemen, the new Audi A8 is the most sporty sedan of Audi’s luxury segment. A premiere for the United States here in Detroit. Scott Keogh, President of Audi of America, and I know that this new Audi A8 will excite and convince customers in the US. It will come to the Audi dealership from summer on.
And it will add another chapter to the momentum story of Audi in the United States. Scott and his fantastic team will make it happen – thank you so much in advance.
For almost 20 years, the Audi A8 has been the very successful crown of our premium sedan family. And again, our engineers took all their expertise and dedication and came up with a true masterpiece: Refined and uncompromised design, premium quality and fitting at highest perfection, technology engineered for the perfect drive and benchmark efficiency in its segment. The new Audi A8 takes all of these qualities to a new level. One important detail: Our six cylinder TDI clean diesel has a remarkably low consumption resulting in 36 miles per gallon on a highway and benchmark CO2 efficiency.
The new A8 is truly a synonym for how the Audi engineers are pushing the limits of technology. And that’s what we are committed to – in our strive to position the Audi brand to where it belongs – the pinnacle of the premium automotive industry.
2013 has been an extremely successful year for Audi: We saw a new all-time record in terms of sales, we launched pathfinding technologies and products and we outperformed the competition in motorsports.
For the first time ever, we delivered more than 1.57 million cars, 8.3 percent more than 2012. With this, we over-achieved our strategic target of 1.5 million cars two years earlier than planned.
In other words: in the past four years alone, we have attracted more than 600,000 new customers worldwide. Let me take this opportunity to thank our global team for this tremendous accomplishment.
And, ladies and gentlemen, we do not rest on our laurels. We are committed to push our growth even further toward our goal of two million units per year in 2020.
This year, we are adding momentum with the global market introduction of 17 promising models – among them, we will see five new cars such as Audi S1, Audi A3 e-tron plug-in hybrid, Audi A3 g-tron with e-gas and the third generation of the Audi TT Coupé.
We pursue the mission of becoming the world’s leading premium car manufacturer.
This is why we recently announced the largest investment program of our company history. We will spend a total of approximately 22 billion Euros through 2018, equivalent to more than 30 billion dollars. Two thirds of this amount will go into new production sites, new products, and new technologies and innovations.
We are committed to constantly refining our automobiles.
And we are equally committed to redefining mobility.
For many years, Audi has been a leader in automotive electronics and human-machine interface solutions. We were the first car manufacturer to showcase at the International CES in 2011 – and last week in Las Vegas, we saw a lot of attention for
our latest innovations on:
- piloted driving and parking,
- high-speed LTE standard,
- virtual cockpit for the next-generation TT sports car,
- and laser light technology.
In these areas, we are truly leading the industry.
Also, we announced the Open Automotive Alliance where we partner with technology leaders such as Google to bring Android applications to our cars, starting in 2014.
All of these innovations are truly bold steps forward to bring an even safer and more intuitive car technology to the streets.
Our Chief Technology Officer, Professor Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, will now give you a deeper insight in what we envision for the future. Please welcome Dr. Hackenberg and the next vehicular masterpiece from Audi.
Thank you.