Last weekend I saw a commercial for the Audi e-tron. You know, that’s the name of all of Audi’s electrically powered cars. Would I ever buy one? Never ever in this lifetime.

Am I against Audi? Is it a bad car? No, neither nor. Audi is a great company with awesome products and we even have a company A3 g-tron (G as in gas) which our employees love dearly. All is good. But an e-tron? Never!

The reason for that is simple: I speak French and we do have customers in France. And for them that wouldn’t work at all.

I’ll tell you why: “L‘étron“ – spelled almost as the car –means… “turd” when translated. You don’t believe me? Look it up in your dictionary!

Let’s be honest… how can you name a car “turd”?!? I definitely can’t show up at my customers with it. And we are not talking about a rural West-Greenlandic dialect or the language of a tribe from Papua New Guinea. French is the native language of several hundred people! There has to be someone in this organization who raises his/her hand and asks for additional suggestions!

Just imagine, you arrive at your customer and he greets you like this:

“How are you? Long time no see… how was your trip?”

“Well, thank you. I’m fine. I’m very relaxed. My sh*t pile is parked outside. Your boss’s parking space was also available but then I saw there was a space available right outside.” And while saying that you smile politely.

Honestly: your meeting is gone at that point. This customer won’t hire me for any additional jobs anymore. Never ever. The show is over.

I really don’t want to advise you against buying an e-tron. I am sure the quality is good, that’s not the question. But if you later on wonder why your French friends stopped inviting you over, please remember this article. 🙂

On that note: I hope you have a cheerful day (and in case you are the unfortunate one who’s responsible for the name, I’ll just say “Bon courage” for your next meeting with your boss, in case he read that article.) 🙂 🙂 🙂