This is the best explanation of how a cars development process works at a big manufacturer.
You forgot to mention the long hours, overtime and task forces when the prototype turns out to have major issues, and all the carefully laid out test plans fly out the window 😂

This channel is getting better and better. The level of information is amazing. Stay true to yourself and this channel will become legendary.

Interesting how they didn't have their CAD models in the office even for cross referencing. Weird you had to get your own license, but a win is a win. Thanks for the insight Buchan.

This one felt personal lol. That brake duct solution was clever. With how expensive car engeniering is I'm not surprised it is that convoluted

I feel the engineering management struggle..

Developing cars blindly without seeing it in CAD explains a lot why cars are stupidly difficult to fix now and why some decision look moronic... Good video. Made me a bit sad how so much time, energy and money were wasted.

You gave by far the best explanation, what is really going wrong in the industry.
Everyone wants to decide something, but they never want to take over responsibility for their decisions.
And these people are always very fast to present themselves with foreign feathers.

Insane and funny how Audi kept digging hole underneath themselves with each step of development and reacting to Tesla.

The inefficiency of German OEMs developing electric cars should be studied in a seperate course. I worked for one during 2019-2020 and the amount of design work outsourced to India was ridiculous, which while not necessarily a bad decision, produces a lot of incompetent workforce at the design studios, just as you mentioned.

I own a used eTron because I found that the cheap used ones are really nice cars for the money. I dug into the SSPs and the service docs to get a feeling for what I was buying and this video has answered quite a few headscratchers that I couldn't understand at the time. Extremely interesting, thank you very much!

Great video - I’m one of those people who assumed this wasn’t a ground-up EV design. The insight into development was fascinating too, I didn’t realize so much of component developers essentially outsourced to subcontractors.

I know you worked at Audi and engineered the E-tron ever since I followed the channel back in 2022. But there was a question always in my mind is that why people left such a giant company and started their own. After watching this video, I now know why. And I knew that a lot things we see as car enthusiasts were done by suppliers, but I didn’t know it could done this far. Thank you so much for the video!

I can 200% confirm that the way of designing and working is soo inefficient. A lot of the CAD and R&D Work is indeed outsouced. So that externals have the clear view about the overall design Or components like the brakes, AC modules and so on. While unfortunately the internal colleagues have to run from meeting to meeting to discuss what suspension, seats, AC modules, and so on should be implemented, to tell the externals and suppliers what to implement. Without having a deep understanding on what the consequences are. In Germany that is the case in many industries btw.

I used to work at FCA at the aero department. We were able to get all the parts that makes up a whole car to simulate the radiator cooling performance and external aero. I'm surprised that Audi is organized such that it is fragmented and no connection with others.

Someone who is proactive like yourself will be frustrated to work in a giant corp where there are tons of boundaries.

Also echt wahr, Worte können kaum beschreiben wie sehr ich Deine Videos schätze. Bin selber seit 12 Jahren in dem Verein und dadurch dass meine Eltern beide seit den 70er Jahren in der TE waren, hab ich immer viel von diesen Querelen und schwer nachvollziehbaren Entscheidungen mitbekommen. Nur wurden es immer mehr. Alleine in der Zeit, in der ich dabei bin, hat sich so viel „verändert“ aber man muss ja immer aufpassen was man hier schreibt :-)
Danke für die unermüdliche Arbeit, die Du in diesen Kanal steckst.
Du bist eine schier unerschöpfliche Quelle des Wissens, wahnsinnig eindrucksvoll!

Since learning CATIA v5 at university, I disliked how designing with CAD software is rather bureaucratic (for CAD in general, and CATIA in particular). Like pressing 20 buttons to get two holes in your part.
But man, drawing a simple part in 30 minutes, is still better than spending 2 hours to only see a part.
And I now understand even better why some parts of my car have awkward placement for fasteners, and are difficult to get in and out.

As a former engineer in a big company like you ( but not a car company ,though) , I feel you totally.

This has to be one of your best videos yet, together with the Phaeton series. Incredible amounts of information and insider info

I just can't get enough of these videos. Thank you

Thank you for these insights. Despite all the details you gave us: I had rented several times an e-tron 50 before I finally leased one e-tron 55 in 2022 (just before facelift to Q8)  and returned it in early 2025. It didn't consume as much as other drivers reported: my one was at 24,5 kWh/100km over a total distance of 70.000km. No issues with the car at all. No SW or HW problems. Solid and the most comfortable and quiet car I ever had. Charging never a problem, the 140 to 150 kW flat often reached on tour. The side sliding covers for the Typ2/CCS connectors on both sides were a brilliant feature. No motor coolant leakage, in fact the "cup" collecting it in case was alwas dry during the 2 service inpections. Was in Rome/Italy, Switzerland, Austria as well in the upper norther parts of Germany. Winter, Summer, Mountains, Autobahn - a well-designed companion which I'll for sure miss. And in Italy got lots of compliments for the car outside design, people turned round to watch.