Oh, Crap: Audi mucks up e-tron name in French

Audi e-tron Detroit Concept – Click above for high-res image gallery

There's a lot of allure surrounding Audi's all-electric e-tron. We've seen prototypes out and about on public roads and collected a fair share of photo galleries from different auto shows. Our comrades at AutoblogGreen even had the chance to ride shotgun in the R8-based electric rocket. But until now we haven't thought much about Audi's choice of nomenclature for its torque-tastic supercar, and according to Green Car Reports, Audi may have fudged this one... slightly.

Étron, in French, is apparently not a word that signifies electric power, sex appeal or innovation. It is, in fact, a word that's closely associated with the less-than-glamorous act of excretion. If you hit up any one of the numerous online translation tools, you'll learn that étron has some pretty... crappy synonyms, which include words like "caca," "excrement," "dung" and "feces." Unfortunately, Audi may have inadvertently named its entire lineup of EVs after a bodily function that's seldom associated with spectacular vehicles. That is, unless the automaker intended that we translate e-tron as, "the Audi that's as fast as, well, you know."