Audi

Audi is a German automaker that has the majority of the company owned by Volkswagen. However, there was a time in which Daimler-AG owned the company. The company was established in 1899, however, as a different company. The owners of the company had a few disagreements so it became time to move on, and that is when Audi was first introduced to the public by August Horch. Interestingly, the name Audi is actually a meaning of the founders name which means to listen and when this is translated into Latin, the word becomes Audi. In fact, it was a son of one of the friends of Horch that come up with the name Audi and was studying Latin at the time.

The first car that Audi produced was released in 1910. Then, this model was followed by several other models that were all widely accepted by the public, and were even accepted by the sports world. In 1920, Horch left the company for another job, however, he did stay involved with Audi, since he was the founder. It was a year later, in 1921 that Audi had a huge first for the automotive world in the production of a left sided driven car. This was a huge hit with the public as most people found that while driving on the left side, they could better see the traffic that was coming their way because of this the idea became mainstream quickly.

The Auto Union plays a huge role in the history of Audi. During the first time that the company was part of the Auto Union, they found that their cars were selling decently However, as World War II set in, they were made to stop producing cars, and focus on military equipment, as most automakers of the time were forced to do. After the end of the war, another Auto Union came into play, however it was disastrous for Audi, who saw themselves only having a 0.1% stake in the market. The reason is that the Auto Union was focusing on other brands such as the Mercedes. However, the Auto Union in general did not do that good when compared to other automakers who were capitalizing on the rising economy.

Because of all the drama that the Auto Union was causing, it was decided to terminate the union. Then, in 1964, Volkswagen purchased Audi. Under the car of Volkswagen, Audi saw that they were becoming their own brand of car for the first time since their beginning years. It was during this time that Audi had its first public outcry against their products as they faced lawsuits over an acceleration problem that caused many accidents. However, as investigations wore on, it was found that these problems were due to driver error. In addition, it was found that the "60 Minutes" news show actually rigged the car to perform badly on national television, which is something that the network never acknowledged. However, Audi did make some redesigns to the vehicle, such as setting the brake and gas pedal further apart to avoid mistakes, as well as making sure that the brake had to be pressed in order to go into drive.