A special experience

“When I went to a museum with my parents as a child, I always found it very exciting whenever I could press on something or move something around. And I still feel like that.” And that is exactly what the Audi driving experience (ADE for short) is all about, according to Christopher Broeker: To try things out – your own driving skills, but also Audi’s technologies and models as well.

Broeker has been a project manager at ADE for around eleven years. “I simply enjoy meeting people at the events and getting their feedback.” But, he says, that is only a small part of his job: After all, it takes organisation, preparation and teamwork for the more than one thousand event days a year. “Audi has high expectations regarding the perfection and quality of our vehicles, and this is also true for our experiences.”

In the end, everybody should be satisfied. “But sometimes you can see that people are not used to certain driving manoeuvres, or the dynamics of the Audi RS e-tron GT, for example,” says Broeker with a grin. Under the guidance of professional instructors and on prepared terrain, the Audi driving experience can and should push you to your limits. There is also a safety aspect to this, Broeker explains. “The learning effect is particularly great during our winter training sessions.” It's not just about acceleration and speed, but about feelings and experience.

“Vehicles today offer more and more technology and features – it’s our job to explain to the participants what such a vehicle can actually do under real conditions and how systems interact.” Broeker knows that you can only become better when you try things out, test them, feel them, and drive courses in different settings. “What does change and how does it feel when you go through the different modes in Audi drive select, for instance? What makes the quattro four-wheel drive so special, or how do I sit properly behind the wheel?

According to Broeker, people are always impressed with the experience of driving quattro in particular. Even for the participants who drive their own Audi model equipped with quattro. “On our off-road course, you can actually see how the technology works. There are spots where a wheel deliberately loses contact with the ground. If you look at it from the outside, you can see that the wheel hanging in the air is no longer being driven, but the others are. That is a true ‘Aha!’ moment. Even for me.” Yet, his personal quattro moment is when there is a lot of snow in the winter. “I’m on the road a lot with the Audi driving experience¹ as part of the Audi winter sports programme. I really appreciate being able to rely on the quattro drive, for example in the all-electric Audi RS e-tron GT. You can immediately feel how confidently the system regulates the drive forces and controls them between the wheels.”

The Audi driving experience is increasingly focussing on e-mobility anyway. “I see us as making an important contribution to making this still relatively new form of mobility more popular.” And this is where everything becomes full circle: it works particularly well when you feel the spectacular acceleration of an Audi RS e-tron GT and understand the interplay of technologies – i.e. when you try them out and experience them for yourself.