Who founded the Audi company?

Who founded the Audi company? August Horch founded it.

Horch was a German engineer and automobile pioneer who established a new car company in Zwickau in 1909 after leaving the earlier Horch company he had founded. Because the Horch name was already protected as a brand, his new company adopted “Audi,” the Latin imperative meaning “listen,” as a translation of his surname’s German meaning.

The Audi name was formalized as Audi Automobilwerke GmbH, Zwickau, in 1910. Horch’s earlier business, founded in 1899, is part of the brand’s deeper ancestry, but it was his second company that became Audi.

A common mix-up is crediting Carl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler, or Ferdinand Porsche. Horch did work for Carl Benz early in his career, while Porsche later contributed engineering expertise to the wider Auto Union story. Neither founded Audi. Horch remained connected to the company’s history even after Audi joined Auto Union in 1932.