This article summarizes Audi's rise to prominence in China over the past 30 years and its impotence in the disruptive arrival of electric vehicles.
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Audi's trademark infringement lawsuit against NIO in Germany has put it back in the forefront of many discussions and also put its poor performance in China's electric vehicle (EV) market under scrutiny.
In an article published today, local media outlet Huxiu summarized Audi's rise in China over the past 30+ years, and its inability to do anything about the disruptive arrival of EVs.
Here are some key takeaways from the article:
"As someone who has bought 3 Audi fuel cars, I just can't find a reason to buy an Audi EV, they are too much like fuel cars," said Zhang Xiaoman, who sold his Audi and bought a Tesla vehicle.
There are plenty of Chinese consumers who think the same way as Zhang, and that's reflected in Audi's sales, which sold just 1,316 EVs in China in the first five months of the year, including 401 e-trons, 159 Q5 e-trons and 756 Q2L e-trons.
Before the age of EVs, if you went into an Audi dealership store, there was always an Audi model for you.
But Audi underestimated the enthusiasm of Chinese consumers for EVs, causing it to enter the Chinese EV market too late. It also overestimated the Audi brand's ability to command a premium in the EV era, making it too expensive.
Audi does lead in the fuel car era, but its EVs really have little to do with the new era.
Audi is not the only one suffering in China's EV market, many international auto giants have no choice but to introduce EVs into China one by one, and then watch them being abandoned by consumers.
The old powerhouse represented by Audi still has a chance to make a comeback, as long as they spend less time on researching how to sue NIO for trademark infringement and more on researching new ways to build cars.
If you want to learn more, you can click here to get the page automatically translated by Google Translate.
Original in Chinese: https://www.huxiu.com/article/584608.html
Note: Weilai refers to NIO in the automatic translation.
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