Audi's Plans For World Domination Postponed

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

By 2015, Audi wanted to overtake BMW and become the world’s largest maker of premium cars. These plans have been postponed. Not until 2018, but until 2020. The road ”is getting bumpier,” Audi CEO Rupert Stadler told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and said that world domination now will happen “by 2020 at the latest. It is not about overtaking BMW tomorrow or the day after, but to seize and secure the top position.”

Says a snide Reuters: “Stadler had previously set a goal of making Audi the world’s top premium car maker by 2015.” Reuters says that sales of Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz cars grew in June at the slowest monthly rate so far this year, as sales in the key market of China continued to increase at a tepid rate.”

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Speed Spaniel Speed Spaniel on Jul 09, 2012

    In which parallel universe?

  • Brock_Landers Brock_Landers on Jul 09, 2012

    Audi fanboys are funny. Veyron is built from scratch. Crucial parts of the car are even outsourced from small specialist compnaies that have never before and never after the Veyron project worked with VAG. Only thing that Veyron has from VAG car is digital odometer display from B5 Passat :) FWD platform (cheaper to build and not-so-good balance of the whole car compared to RWD platform) and engine-gearbox sharing with cheaper Volkswagens-Seats-Skodas... is Audi true premium manufacturer? - its debatable with lot of Audi models.

    • See 3 previous
    • Svenmeier Svenmeier on Jul 11, 2012

      The only Audis I know off that share platforms with VWs are the A1, A3 and the Q5 and Q7. The other Audis use their own platforms in which their FWD cars come with longitudinal engine layouts. VW, Skoda and Seat employ FWD/transverse layouts.

  • Slow kills Slow kills on Jul 09, 2012

    I look forward to seeing Audi make premium cars.

  • NMGOM NMGOM on Jul 10, 2012

    Audi makes decent mid-range premium cars with outstanding interiors and the innovative "Quattro" AWD system. But to overtake either BMW's 7-Series or MB's S-Class will take a lot, to say nothing about the resurge in Lexus. But MB itself is busily overtaking BMW in the luxury premium category, so Audi's target may be misplaced. (Check GoodCar/BadCar sales statistics for 1st 6 months in 2012.) And, of course, neither BMW nor MB are just going to stand still and watch Audi ascend. Audi's have historically been a little more "delicate"; have had a poorer repair record; and have not had the crisp handling properties of BMW cars. Unless the world goes absolutely bonkers for hybrids in the next 8 years (in which case it's a new game anyway), I doubt that Audi can pull this off. We'll see. --------------

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