[BiturboS4] RE: A4 profits

Ti Kan ti at amb.org
Fri Oct 25 05:39:43 EDT 2002


Edwards, Dave writes:
> Actually I agree, so I'm doubting what I read now. It's bugging me so I want
> to find out where I got the info from.
>
> On thing is true though that manufacturers will often produce loss-making
> cars for marketing reasons. In the end they either end the line or re-vamp
> it. This certainly happened to Ford in Europe with their larger coupes.
> First they had the Probe which didn't sell, then they replaced it with the
> Cougar which also didn't sell. I'm sure they will keep trying, just to keep
> propping up the image of the company.

The Audi A8 used to be a loss-making, but image-enhancing model when it
first came out.  But since it's a low volume car it's justifiable.  I am
not sure it is loss-making any more, now that Audi has had considerably
more expertise building aluminum chassis cars (helped also by the higher
volume Audi A2).

The A4 simply has to be profitable, because its a bread-and-butter model
of the company.  Otherwise Audi would not be able to survive.

-Ti
2003 A4 1.8T multitronic
2001 S4 biturbo 6-sp
1984 5000S turbo
1980 4000 2.0 5-sp
--
    ///  Ti Kan                Vorsprung durch Technik
   ///   AMB Laboratories, Sunnyvale, CA. USA
  ///    ti at amb.org
 //////  http://www.amb.org/ti/
///




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