Despite his quest for (luxury car) world dominance, Audi’s CEO says the company won’t be exploring speciality products before it first gets all of its SUV-type vehicles out.
In an interview with Automotive News, CEO Rupert Stadler says Audi will focus on core, hot-selling segments like SUVs to boost its sales to become the global luxury brand leader by 2020. And that means niches like big, luxury wagons and minivans will be passed over.
Despite the strong praise for the Audi Prologue Avant Concept shown at March’s Geneva Motor Show, Stadler says “dream on” to enthusiasts.
For us, it confirmed that our future design direction is correct. Unfortunately, wagons are popular only in Europe, so we doubt there would be enough demand to justify building such a model.
Surprisingly, there’s no rock-solid case for a production version of last year’s Audi TT Offroad Concept. Despite the need to grow the TT’s sales, Stadler says that car would need to be put on the next-generation of the MQB platform, which won’t come until next decade.
And Audi won’t follow BMW down its small people carrier path with a rival to the 2-series Active Tourer.
“Consumers are more likely to switch to an SUV and are more likely to pay a premium price because SUVs are considered more emotional,” Stadler said. “We would rather be the emotional choice than the rational choice.”
Still, Audi has three new SUVs arriving by 2020, including an all-electric model. So if you’re in the market for an Audi in the next few years, you’ll have plenty of new choices.
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