Did Audi copy Tesla’s website to create its EV FAQs page? It sure looks that way. Twitter user CillDar shared that Andrew O’Connor saw something very familiar on Audi’s Ireland EV website. It seems that Audi was using text for its FAQs from Tesla’s Ireland website. He provided screenshots of both websites in the tweet below and highlighted the quote “Every New Model 3, Model S, and Model X is compatible with CCS charging.”
Audi Ireland clearly doing a copy and paste job with Tesla's page.@thirdrowtesla@Model3Owners @Audi @Tesla @earlectrek @vincent13031925 https://t.co/fQshNSewVfhttps://t.co/fy7xACeiD9
(Spotted by Andrew O'Connor) pic.twitter.com/Za3cUvaCAK
— CillDar (@CillDar) April 23, 2020
The side-by-side screenshots share a compelling story and I wanted to see if it were true so I clicked on Audi’s website from the tweet. However, when I got to the site, I didn’t see anything about Tesla. One would normally give up, but then I remembered the Wayback Machine. I learned of this little tool thanks to Wade Anderson, who helped me recover my open letter to Elon Musk that I wrote back in 2018. You see, my ex hacked my website and took it down. I had to start all over and I thought all my work was gone forever. Thank you, Wade, for not only saving the open letter that Elon shared, but all of my work. This tool is like a time machine for websites even if the domain no longer exists.
I wanted to see if what I suspected had happened. I suspected that whoever was working on Audi’s website was copying and pasting from Tesla’s website. If this were true, the archival site would show it. And it did, as you can see in the screenshot below.
It’s hard to tell in the image, but the link goes to Audi’s Ireland website. The archival site also noted that there have been two recent updates to this particular webpage. The archival site shows that the page was saved at 17:07:25 and at 17:07:48, which must be in the timezone wherever the site is hosted (probably Ireland).
It’s clear to see that whoever was designing the site was using Tesla’s as an example and wanted the Audi site to look as similar to Tesla’s as possible while being branded with the Audi logo and name.
I can understand Audi wanting to copy Tesla’s website. After all, Tesla is the leader in the EV industry, and the company knows its stuff. Nonetheless, seeing a well-known luxury car company use the example of a so-called newcomer to the industry that is “destined to fail and go bankrupt because of fraud” is really a compliment to Tesla. Notice I put that false description of Tesla in quotes due to it being a senseless mantra chanted by critics because it’s all they have left of an old pipe dream of failure.
This is not the most monumental, important story of the decade, but it is odd and interesting.
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