I saw a new Audi driving. That surprised me, because Audi is a bit off the radar as a premium product. Ingolstadt seems to be struggling with identity and at the board level they apparently don’t get it right. Three years after ‘our’ Bram Schot retired – seemed like a nice guy by the way – there is already a new CEO. Markus Duesmann left and the new governor is called Gernot Döllner. I understand that VW boss Blume is dissatisfied with the pace of electrification at Audi. Is he right. After the e-tron, Audi was overtaken by the law of the diminishing lead. While BMW and Mercedes are now rapidly and systematically rolling out their EV ranges, Audi is not making much headway.
Audi’s second problem is the complement of the first. Few EVs means; many ICEs. The car I saw was a classic Audi petrol sedan, an A3 Limousine or an A4. I think the fact that I can barely tell them apart says more about the brand than about me. It was nevertheless a beautiful model, which would certainly have been a head turner ten years ago. Now I thought: Why did the lady behind the wheel opt for an Audi? It wouldn’t be the car itself. It probably drove fine and it was probably well put together, because Audi always remained top quality. An acquaintance kicked four consecutive Q7s with heavy trailers for about one and a half million kilometers together without serious problems. He swears by his tanks, and this tough sedan was no less. You would whistling to drive to Spain.
One thing he wasn’t; of this time. A completely twentieth-century concept drove by there, a premium family car from the olden days, when Tesla lease drivers still dreamed of Audis. Had the Vorsprung durch Technik nothing more original in the barrel? Why did Ingolstadt still make that car? I had no answer. What Audi stands for now, I wouldn’t know.
I checked what I had seen on my phone. It had been an A3. I decided to configure it, see what you could spend on a little old Audi these days. It became an S Edition with 17-inch light metal, S line interior and exterior and aluminum trim strips for the windows. Chic! I opted for the 150PS 35 TFSI S Tronic in neat Navarra Blue Metallic, spoiled myself with black Nappa leather with S logos, folding door mirrors, Bang & Olufsen Sound System and adaptive cruise, but didn’t tick the options list to the hilt – civilization holds mate. Final amount: €47,588.75.
Then you cast a skewed eye on the competition, especially the electric one, being the future. For six thousand less you have a Model 3 with 491 kilometers of range and something like 325 hp, for more than €2,000 more a Model 3 Long Range with 600 km range and an acceleration from 0 to 100 in 4.4 seconds. No premium, but future-proof. The beautiful Ioniq 6 and the smaller but fast Kona Electric with large battery also fall into this price segment. With my A3 configuration you are already quite close to a Polestar 2 with now 272 hp and a reasonable range. That is the frame of reference. Cars that you would never have dared to compare with that posh four-ring brand. Now it is. Perhaps the most interesting development: The market no longer seems to draw a prestige line between premium and non-premium, exactly the distinction that brands like Audi had to rely on.
Then price becomes a factor more than ever. See for yourself what the cheapest plug-in Audi costs. The Q4 e-tron starts at just under 60 grand. There’s a problem. In Germany, Audi sold 8,262 of them in the first half of 2023, while Tesla sold 27,825 Model Ys with more range and more space for less money, although the finish does not come close to the Audi. So the German Tesla buyers don’t give a damn about Audi’s USP.
I tested the last Audi in early 2022. It was the Q4 Sportback e-tron. Not a bad car. But architecturally chaotic, nothing exceptional. It wasn’t an Audi either. Then what? A platform car. An ID4 or Enyaq in Audi uniform with Audi surcharge. I can still see myself writing: “Do something, Audi. Otherwise, the impression could be created that this proud, beautiful brand can be relegated to a subcontractor of the Wolfsburg platform dictatorship.”
That you have to repeat that sigh a year and a half later seems to me to be a bad sign.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl