Rainer Denninger drives a lot. But not kilometre-wise, not necessarily. It’s rather that Rainer Denninger has driven a lot of Audis over the past few decades. “I bought my first Audi from my brother for 100 marks. It was a white Audi 80.” At the time, he just wanted to have his own car. Born and raised in Ingolstadt, it had to be an Audi, of course. So, it was okay that it had a few flaws: “A bit of rust here, a few dents there – the boot lock was broken. But it didn’t matter back then.” There are more than 30 years between this Audi 80 and the current Audi A3 Sportback, which Denninger has been driving for some time now.

It’s 33 years, to be exact. Rainer Denninger acted in various capacities at Audi during that time. After holding positions in Technical Development, Marketing and Human Resources, “today I’m a project manager in Corporate Citizenship. Together with my team, I am responsible for social and community involvement at the Audi production sites.” So, naturally, he has started to pay much more attention to the equipment of his own vehicle. One constant feature has become one of his favourites: the Audi smartphone interface. “I now attach great importance to an intuitive and clever smartphone integration. We share two cars at home, and it’s important to me that, no matter which one I want to drive, I’m instantly connected.”

The digital service that brings Apple CarPlay or Android Auto to an Audi vehicle is not new and has been available in many Audi models for some time now. “But I think it’s exciting to see that it’s getting better and more convenient with each generation of vehicles,” Denninger observes. He has used the system in several Audi models over the past few years himself. Today, he reveals, he is most excited about the inductive charging and wireless connectivity of his phone. Being greeted by the system and seeing his name in the display as soon as his phone is connected plays a minor role. To him, it’s more important that he can seamlessly mirror his music playlists from his smartphone on the display, or that he can have messages read out loud. “Especially when I switch cars, the direct pairing of my smartphone is pretty handy. This kind of flexibility and simplicity is massively important to me.”