Audi's Future

[Ti Kan]

Huw Powell writes:
> > Cut to VW.  VW was the inexpensive, bread-and-butter
> > entry level car. Now it's a premium sport sedan and
> > ultra-luxury models. What is VW trying to be?  And
> > it's Audi brand is what? A premium sport sedan?
> > Luxury model?
> 
> I read here a coupe-three years ago that the marketing goal was for VW 
> to compete with BMW and Audi with Benz.  Whatever that means...

It was the other way around...  Audi against BMW (sport-oriented), and
VW against Mercedes (luxury at the top, all the way down to econo
people-movers).

On the VW front, it is not just VW's own doing.  Mercedes has encroached
upon VW's turf by offering budget-priced models to compete against the
Golf and Polo in Europe (with the A-class, etc), and VW is answering to
that by challenging the S-class with the Phaeton and the M-class with
the Touareg.  Whether the Phaeton will actually make money is probably
a moot point, but the Touareg should do quite well in this absurdly
SUV-hungry market.

On the Audi front, the recent high power models (S4, RS6, etc) are
giving BMW quite the whollop, and the new A8 is much better received
than the ugly new 7'er.  Add to this Audi's successes in racing,
I'd say that the focus is working well.  All that good press do increase
sales in the bread-and-butter A4s and A6s.  Audi recently announced the
best-ever yearly sales record in the US for 2003.

-Ti
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