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Audi AG is a German automobile manufacturer with headquarters in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, and has been an almost wholly owned (99.7%) subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group since 1964. The company evolved from Auto Union, NSU, Horch and DKW, the former having incorporated the historic Audi company which was founded in 1910. Audi's corporate tagline is Vorsprung durch Technik, the English translation meaning Advancement through Technology or Head Start through Technology. This German-language tagline is also used in other European countries, including the UK, and in other markets, such as Latin America, Oceania and parts of Asia including Japan. The American and Canadian tagline is Truth in Engineering.
As a premium member of the VW Group, technologies are frequently first introduced to the mass market in Audi vehicles before being 'trickled down' to more value oriented brands such as VW, SEAT and Skoda. Recent examples of this include a number of the FSI engines mentioned above, as well as the quick-shifting DSG automatic gearbox option. TSIŽ technology was introduced to the Volkswagen Golf early in 2006. These engines use, initially at least, a capacity of 1.4 litres combined with both a turbo- and super-charger to produce a high power output, with lower levels of harmful carbon dioxide emissions and improved fuel economy when compared with a non-turbo or super-charged engine of a high capacity, such as 2.0 litres. The 1.4 litre TSI engine currently on sale in VW's Golf produces outputs of 140 and 170 bhp (127 kW). These engines have proved popular amongst the motoring press in Britain and could soon be filtered into the Audi range, with a possibility of featuring in the A3 and A4 models, as well as maybe featuring in SEAT and Skoda's model ranges sometime soon. Audi has publicly set a goal to surpass BMW and the luxury and safety leaders Mercedes-Benz in global sales by 2015 and have made giant strides to the achievement of this goal since.
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