Flexible, sustainable production
To ensure the premium manufacturer will be able to respond more flexibly to fluctuations in customer demand or production program, Audi will make its manufacturing processes even more flexible. “We want to structure both product and production so we get the optimum benefit for our customers,” says Walker. To this end, the new Audi Q6 e-tron, for example, will initially be made in Ingolstadt on the same line as the Audi A4 and A5. The electric models will then gradually replace the combustion cars on the lines.

Audi has been pursuing its Mission:Zero environmental program to reduce its ecological footprint related to production and logistics since 2019. The program’s central goal is to make all Audi production sites worldwide net carbon neutral1 by 2025. To this end, the plants in Brussels and Győr as well as the Böllinger Höfe in Neckarsulm have already been converted. The environmental program also addresses the areas of resource and water efficiency as well as the protection and preservation of biodiversity. For example, Audi plans to halve today’s ecologically weighted water consumption2 value in its production sites by 2035. In 2018, Audi México became the world’s first premium manufacturer to produce cars completely wastewater-free. At the Neckarsulm site, a water cycle was set up in a pilot project between the factory and the neighboring municipal wastewater treatment plant, which will reduce the demand for freshwater by more than 70 percent.

On its way to becoming a 360factory, Audi is now setting itself even more ambitious sustainability targets related to production. By 2030, the company aims to cut its absolute environmental impact in the areas of primary energy consumption, power plant emissions, CO2 equivalents, air pollutants, local water risk, and wastewater and waste volumes in half, compared with the 2018 figure. Important steps to achieve this goal include generating renewable energy in-house and using innovative technologies to create more circular value chains where resources used are utilized in closed cycles.