With the last sales reports flying in there’s finally a clear picture of how this year went for various automakers in the United States. Brands with trucks, affordable crossovers, and/or hybrids did quite well. Brands that are too EV-heavy, saddled with aging lineups, or a bunch of also-ran vehicles suffered the most.
If you’ve read The Morning Dump lately it won’t surprise you to find out that most of the Stellantis brands had a bad year, but Audi’s poor showing might be news. Audi, for whatever reason, has managed to avoid the negative attention. Don’t worry, Audi will get its spotlight today.
Both Ford and GM improved on the year in sales, which might help explain why Ford dealers are feeling better about the brand (Ford walking away from its EV mandates probably also didn’t hurt). Even better, Lincoln had its best year since 2007 thanks to a Chinese import.
The Problem With The Silver Cars
Of all the “mobility company” plays in the last decade that made no sense to me, the one I actually quite liked was Silvercar. Founded in 2015, the Austin-based company had a simple idea: Renting cars is too expensive and complicated, let’s make it easier.
The concept was great. At first, all you could rent was a silver Audi A4 sedan. A perfectly cromulent car, ideal for driving around whatever city you landed in, with just a touch of premium luxury. You could book via an app, with a process way more streamlined than anything you could expect from a rental agency at the time.
Plus, it was “cool” to drive an Audi. The brand had a lot of forward-thinking sports cars and coupes, a genuine supercar, and a prototype race car that absolutely dominated global motorsports. Audi could do no wrong. Then Dieselgate happened, Audi pivoted to EVs, and somewhere along the way, the brand got harder to pin down.
Audi quickly invested in Silvecar, expanded the number of vehicles that were offered, and eventually transitioned the company into “Audi on Demand.” Late last year, Audi ended the program with little explanation. Had Audi overcomplicated the service? Was it just too expensive and time-consuming to run a rental agency? Has Uber/Lyft and the rise of Turo made this service obsolete?
Or, and this is a tougher situation for Audi, is Audi no longer cool? Has it lost its Audi-ness? It’s probably some mix of all of the above, but the lack of coolness is what I’m interested in this morning.
I’m going to start with the numbers, and the numbers aren’t great. You know it’s going to be bad news when you get a year-end sales email from a company and it’s just a link, with little text, and that link just goes to a table. Overall, Audi’s new car sales are down 14% for the year, though that’s off a relatively strong 2023.
Looking at the lineup there’s not a lot of good news. In a year that saw the overall market growing, here are all the Audi vehicles that lost ground in 2024 compared to 2023:
- A3 (-30%)
- A4 (-48%)
- A7 (-13%)
- A8 (-28%)
- e-tron GT (-10%)
- Q5 (-23%)
- Q7 (-28%)
- Q8 e-tron (-27%)
- Q8 e-tron sportback (-33%)
- R8 (-48%)
- TT (-95%)
Some of this is due to discontinuation, with a few leftover Audi TTs skewing the numbers, for instance. In fact, Audi is getting out of the coupe game entirely for now. Still, losing with volume sellers like the Q7 and Q5 hurts. The Q5, in particular, is the most important Audi there is now, effectively replacing the A4 in the lineup. The most successful Audi in 2024 was probably the Audi Q3, which goes to show how important affordability is in the market.
I think the big question that has to be asked is: Why buy an Audi? For a while, the A4 represented a certain tech-forward upper-middle-class professional aesthetic. If you pictured what a young architect might drive in 2010 you’d probably imagine them in a silver Audi A4. In my mind, all those people now drive Tesla Model Ys.
Audi clearly sensed this and built up its electric offerings, selling six different EV models in 2024, and not a single one of them was particularly competitive from a sales perspective. In total, Audi sold fewer than 25,000 electric cars last year, which is about how many Model Ys that Tesla sells every three weeks just in the United States.
Is help on the way? Sure. Audi will get a redesigned, third-gen Q5/Q5 Sportback soon, and that will likely help sales of its key model. The confusion over Audi sedans will be resolved a bit by the introduction of a new Audi S5/A5, a vehicle that our Mercedes recently reviewed and liked. The short-lived Audi RS6 Avant, if not a huge breakout sales success, did bring some much-needed halo energy to the brand.
None of this answers the question: Who is this brand for? Jalopnik had a brutal headline earlier this year when it wrote: “Audi’s Sales Are Flagging Because There’s No Reason To Buy One.” That’s a good joke, though I wouldn’t go that far.
Audi’s CPO sales were up 29.3% year-over-year because, if you make it affordable enough, people still see the value in the Audi brand. This is why I said “lost the plot” in the headline. It’s unclear where Audi is right now based on its mix of products, but all hope is not lost. The four rings still have meaning. There are still enough people alive who remember Jason Statham piloting an Audi in The Transporter, all the Le Mans wins, and Michelle Mouton conquering Pikes Peak.
Right… right?
[Ed Note: I’ll just state that the Audi RS6 Avant remains an extremely cool car in an otherwise somewhat bland lineup. Also, my brother has a bright yellow Audi S3; I drove it recently, and it rules. I also like the E-Tron GT. There’s still some fire in that lineup, but Audi needs more. -DT].
What’s The Most Troubled Stellantis Brand?
Just from a numbers perspective, you might think that Dodge was the most doomed brand in the Stellantis stable. Its annual sales dropped 28.9% in 2024 compared to 2023, and it even fell 47.2% in Q4. That’s not great, but Dodge is merely a shadow of itself already.
Maserati sales were down 4% for the year and 27.5% in Q4. Even worse, Maserati’s volume is so low it’s hard to imagine how the brand even sustains itself. My assumption is that Maserati is going to get sold off, so perhaps it can live a better life somewhere else. Maybe Alfa, which has low volume and poor sales is the worst? Fiat grew this year but, again, from extremely low volumes. Chrysler grew in Q4, on the back of a lot of minivans and also old 300s that haven’t been sold.
Ram is a problem. A big problem. Sales dropped 18.6% year-over-year and there’s no real replacement for the Ram Classic in the lineup, though a newly redesigned Ram 1500 should bring some relief to Ram dealers in the coming year.
I’m going to make the argument that Jeep is actually the worse off, because Jeep is where the money is and, like Audi, it’s wandering a bit. The Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer has not been a success. The Wrangler has a lot of competition and is aging. The entry-level models are fading away and have yet to be replaced. It’s tough. Overall, Jeep sales were only down 8.6% year-over-year, but that represents the loss of a ton of customers and market share (more than losing all Alfa Romeo, Fiat, and Maserati customers).
The new, likely hybrid Jeep Cherokee is something that basically has to work for Jeep, and I’m hopeful the company will pull it off. I don’t have quite the same enthusiasm for the electric Jeep Wagoneer S, but perhaps it’ll do better than my low expectations for it.
Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram Dealers Big Mad, Ford Dealers A Bit Chiller
Ford had a big year, growing a little faster than the overall market thanks to a lot of hybrids, a new F-150, and a surprisingly good showing from Lincoln (more on that in a bit). While EV sales were also big for Ford, the company walked back its plans to make dealers spend a lot of money upgrading facilities to sell and service electric cars and trucks.
Last year, a bunch of recalls and tsuris around the EV requirements led Ford dealers to place the company as the least trusted franchise in the annual report from dealership advisory firm Kerrigan Advisors. There’s a new report out for 2024, and Ford has improved from the least trusted to the fifth-least trusted. While it’s not great to be the fifth least-trusted franchise, the brand is overall trending in the right direction.
Who is going backward? Only 2% of dealers have a “high level of trust” in Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. That’s worse than all other brands. Perhaps even more damning, a whopping 72% of dealers have “no trust” in the brands, which is way worse than Infiniti at 59% and Nissan at 58%.
Stellantis dealers went to war with then-CEO Carlos Tavares over the lack of competitive product and a squeezing of incentives. The expulsion of Tavares will likely help in this regard, as will the increase in incentive spending, but Stellantis clearly has a long way to go.
The most trusted franchises, if you were curious, are: Toyota, Lexus, Subaru, Honda, and Porsche, in that order.
Lincoln Has, Uh, A Great Year
I drove the Lincoln Nautilus earlier this year and got to try its enormous curved screen and, frankly, I got it. While I do not think of myself as a Lincoln buyer, if someone asked me for a hybrid luxury vehicle that wasn’t a Lexus there’s a lot to be said for getting one of these.
I wasn’t alone in thinking this. Motor Trend’s SUV of the Year‘s sales were up 50.2% year-over-year. The refreshed Aviator also saw a 62.3% increase in sales. Even the Corsair, which has been on sale for what feels like three decades, saw sales increase by 12.8% over the same period.
The only sales decrease was for the Navigator, which was in its last year before a big redesign and experienced a drop of around 11.5%. My sense is that the new Navigator, though expensive, will help turn things around for Lincoln this year.
Does this mean Lincoln, which saw a sales increase of 28.1% overall, is saved? Not quite.
At 104,823 sales, the brand is still smaller than competitors like Acura and, hell, even Chrysler. I’m not sure how many cars the average Lincoln dealer needs to sell for it to be a good business, but there are obviously too many Lincoln dealers for the number of cars being moved (the brand has tried to fix this by getting rid of about 200 dealerships over the last two years).
Even worse, its volume seller, the Nautilus, is a Chinese-built car. While Ford has an out here with a quirk in import laws, increased scrutiny over “connected cars” from China could easily make it harder to sell them over here. Then what?
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I’m kind of surprised to find that this official audio version of “Caribou” from a John Peel Session in 1988 only has 16,000 views. Perhaps Pixies fans are just not listening to music on YouTube? Maybe the eyeball creeped them out a bit?
The Big Question
If you had to buy a new car from Audi, Chrysler, Infiniti, or Lincoln what would you get? Why?
Is it bad I thought the green Audi in the article was a Ford Escape?
I have a few things to chime in about regarding the Audi story. First, Silvercar – it was great when it was based at a dozen or so airports. You’d use the app, they’d pick you up in a shuttle, and then you’d be on your way in an A4 (or later Q5, Q7). I used them a few times specifically because I got some free days when I bought one of my Audis.
Then, for some inexplicable reason, when Audi invested more heavily in Silvercar, they made it extremely inconvenient to use as a rental car. They moved all the “Audi on Demand” cars to dealerships. Your rental counter was now at an Audi dealer, which sounds great for the cars and service and terrible for the customer. A lot of states don’t allow dealers to operate on Sundays which limited when you could rent and turn in the cars for leisure (which, I’d probably rent on a Friday and turn in on Sunday), and a there aren’t a lot of dealers in close proximity to airports, thereby nullifying the use case where one used a Silvercar when travelling. It was a completely boneheaded move where there was seemingly little market research done.
Now, onto the Audi sales situation. For one, their prices have gone WAY up during the last 4-6 years. The price of a base Q5 is now equal to that of an SQ5 from a few years ago. The Q5 in particular is an old model that will be replaced soon, but there is not a lot of value in that car anymore. Audi ditched the A4 and Avant way too early (Can you imagine BMW dropping the 3 series? Mercedes dropping the C-class) and Audi is now renaming their entire lineup based on who the eff knows what. Even numbers for EVs? Odds for Combustion? Why not keep the brand recognition built since their “A” and “S” naming nomenclature started 30 years ago?
Plus, all of their designs have drifted from classy and conservative/reserved to trendy and complicated. It all sucks basically. Audi lost the plot with respect to design language, model lineup, and just generally being a good value relative to the other German brands.
Your use of cromulent embiggens your writing
I would actually buy an S3/RS3 or S5/RS5. But if I was in the market for a Q7 or Nautilus, I’d go Nautilus. The Lincolns are extremely comfortable and luxurious without a pretense of sporty, I think that ruins the Audi SUVs.
If there was was Lincoln sedan based on the Mustang, Lincoln all day.
“If you had to buy a new car from Audi, Chrysler, Infiniti, or Lincoln what would you get? Why?”
I’d get a Jaaaag F-Type. If you’re going to make a bad decision, own it.
Actually, probably a Pacifica. Minivans are awesome.
I’m one of the dozens of Infiniti people. I have not one, but two whole Infintii. Even I would not step into a Infiniti dealer with intention to buy a new one. Ever sense Nissan killed the Prince line, and the Skyline going crossover only. There’s just no reason for it to exist.
So, IDK an Audi maybe. You can get those in colors. No one ever does, but I hear they will paint something other then black, sliver or white if you really want it.
Infiniti has lost their purpose – they used to be a BMW equivalent but at 20% less cost and much better reliability. Now they are ??? If they put a decent powertrain in the QX-50/55, then they might have something interesting – these are very good looking CUVs.
I can tell you’re fo realz by how you wisely used the Plural Infiniti there.
If they were smart enough to put the world-class Jatco Xtronic CVT into their vehicles, it would be a whole different story!
I had a Q3 as a rental last year and the wife and I really liked it. She kinda wants one but agrees the price for new is too high and neither of us wants to live the used Audi lifestyle. I guess I’d get an S4 given the choices you presented. I like a nice, fast sedan.
The VW Tiguan is basically the same car but much larger and cheaper than the Q3. For some that’s a benefit, some a drawback (for parking, etc). I don’t think the Q3 is worth what Audi is charging when you can pretty much get a Q5 for the same price and it’s more refined with a better engine and transmission.
The Tiguan is way bigger, I think more in line with the Q5 or maybe Q7? Part of what we liked about the Q3 was the size. Either way, we got something else and won’t be shopping Audis anytime soon.
Yep, the Tiguan is the same footprint of a Q5 but has more space because of the engine layout. I can see the benefit of the Q3 size (which is basically the size of the VW Taos), especially since I live in a fairly dense city with tight parking. We went Tiguan just because I have two kids to pack in there and the packaging efficiency of that car is just so much better than most other cars.
Ten years ago I wanted a diesel A7. Such a beautifully executed car. I find the current VW Group saga so extremely disturbing because it has become clear that Audi’s “vorsprung durch technik” is just as meaningless as Daimler’s “das beste oder nichts”.
Boy that’s a difficult choice, but I’d probably go for a land yacht Infiniti QX80. Honestly probably better quality than a Ford product at this point and I’ve just never been a big German car guy. Chrysler limits you to just the Pacifica, no? Gonna be a no from me dawg.
I guess Audi, only because I can’t think of a single Audi, Chrysler, Infiniti or Lincoln I have had any desire to own besides the RS6 Avant (that I can’t possibly afford).
Also, I think Jeep is in the most troubled Stellantis brand simply because it isn’t able to print money like it used to be able to. I have owned several Jeeps over the last few decades, and recently purchased a 25 year old Jeep instead of a newish one simply because the newish ones are more challenging to aspire to own. Not only is the JL/JT expensive, but they have become complex and unreliable – not a good combination with something intended to be rugged and (relatively) reliable. The sheer number of 4xe models wasting away on dealer lots here in Colorado is telling, considering two years ago the demand for the 4xe models was insatiable and there were bidding wars on who would pay a higher markup to get one. Now most of the folks I knew who bought a 4xe model are driving Toyotas or Subarus (with one driving a Bronco).
Well first off, all of those brands give me pause due to the reputation for “quality”. So strike #1. So then the question is whether they could do enough to overcome it and make the gamble worth it.
Audi – Generally, anything I can afford from them is just not that desirable. I don’t have $130k for a RS6 Avant. I think they lost it on the styling for for S4/S5, it is just not good. It doesn’t need to be crazy, the old S5 wasn’t, but it just looked sleek. The RS5 improves that a bit, but now you are talking $80k. If the S3/RS3 were hatchbacks, maybe, but I don’t want a tiny sedan even if it has AWD and gobs of power. I guess the Q7 looks OK for a SUV road tripping car for $73k decently equipped. How much is an extended warranty? I guess I’d trust the luxury car dealer to try and keep me happy more than the Chrysler dealer.
Chrysler – I’ve considered buying a Pacifica since a Sienna is still unobtainable and the Odyssey doesn’t have AWD. Stow n Go is nice. The discounts have been deep – seen $10k off advertised on the 2024s. I’d get an extended warranty, which you can shop online and seems to be a reasonable cost. But I don’t know if I trust the local Chrysler dealer to be any good with service when something does break.
Lincoln – Considered an Aviator but they get expensive real fast. The smaller PHEV they sell is a nice ideal, but again, expensive. Extended warranty cost seems reasonable though, so maybe it’d be worth checking out to see what the real cost of a Aviator is after haggling.
Edit: I just realized I forgot Infiniti was part of this too, just like I forget Infiniti exists almost every other day of the year. I guess if the Infiniti Pathfinder was cheap enough, I’d take one. It is probably nice enough and doesn’t have a CVT. I’d probably trust it long-term over a Audi, Chrysler, or Ford/Lincoln. It certainly looks better than the Lexus TX. Too bad it isn’t a hybrid though.
Caribou came onto my headphones as the sun was cutting through the fog in the redwoods. First birthday after divorce I flew to Seattle to buy a Ulysses and ride it down the coast solo. That was a standout moment on maybe the best trip of my life.
I’d buy a Lincoln if I were a new car guy. They’re luxury without also trying to be sporty and I appreciate that. But I don’t finance depreciating assets.
Does Audi still make the RS3? If so then that is the one I’d be interested in. Good awd system, the turbo 5cyl sounds amazing, compact size. I do agree Audi has a bit of an identity crisis, they were tech luxury, but Tesla came out with more tech than them, they seem to be struggling to find their niche. I don’t exactly follow them closely but I struggle to see too much difference from the cars they built in the mid 2010s to the cars they make now. Not exactly what the conspicuous consumption luxury buyers who should be Audi’s bread and butter are looking for.
I’d get an AWD Pacifica if I had to. Easier to trust the gas Stellantis cars then the hybrids, which are the actual junk products. That, and it’s an AWD minivan. The 9 speed works the best with the 3.6.
I could realistically find a new vehicle to buy from most companies. Except anything German or Korean. I could never.
“If you had to buy a new car…”
Nope.
Never again.
Because I have no intention of becoming a Car Payment Slave.
I’ll take an Audi….Coupe Quattro with the RS2 powertrain.
Either that or a hot…..rod….Lincoln.
This might be my most (maybe first) “I agree with Matt” article ever, specifically the Audi stuff. I think a problem not noted though, is that they are too close to VW. VW has completely turned to crap, and their offerings are disgusting, including their new over-priced under featured van thing. Put a few layers of armor on Audi to protect them from the bland/pathetic leaders at VW, and we might see some fun come back to the segment. The drop in SUV sales was shocking to me, those cars are nice looking, but I’ve never cross shopped one to check value.
RAM, will NOT be helped by their new truck. Killing the classic in a money conscience time was dumb as hell. Their new truck ditches the famed “hemi” which was the selling point for most of the owners, and it costs WAY too much for a Ram. I see Ram dead in a couple years, if they don’t make some serious changes. I see pretty much all of Stallantis dead within 5 years without serious changes though. Jeep will be the only one to survive, spun off and sold to a PE firm and be further destroyed until revived by David Tracy after selling his stake in “The Autopian LLC” in 30 years and brought back to glory.
Audi? Not after 25 years of experience with their A4-based Passats. I’ve had a Honda for a decade now and it’s required less work in 10 years than the Audi cars required in a typical year (or even a month…).
Lincolns all seem pretty cool, but I’m not into the tech-heavy dashboards — nor do I trust Ford enough.
Chrysler? I had my eyes on a Pacifica PHEV for a while, but the endless issue and all the games being played with the tax rebate gave me plenty of pause on a $65k minivan.
So I guess it’s Infiniti. I’ve never had any real beef with them, honestly. They seem unfairly maligned. Probably a QX60 (that’s the Pathfinder for people like me who need the translation….)
Local dealer is advertising $12k off select Jeep models and $16k off select RAMs. If you have enough margin to drop the price that much…fuck you.
They likely don’t. Profit margins in modern cars are generally thinner than those in a pair of jeans or shoes. I’d suspect the majority of that money is dealer cash offered by the manufacturer to get the vehicle off the lot.
I believe you’re mistaking dealer profit margins for manufacturer margins.
Manufacturer margins on high-spec trucks and SUVs are some of the highest in the industry.
Because that $6000 extra MSRP for a “Warlock” costs Stellantis almost nothing more than the Bighorn (and it might actually be cheaper due to the lack of chrome) to produce.
And I can guarantee you that a Tungsten costs no more than a Limited to produce, despite it’s $12,000 higher MSRP.
I think we actually agree.
Dealerships do not set profit margins, with the exception of marking up specialty vehicles or after sell products. Invoicing is set by the manufacturer, as is extra dealer cash/rebates offered to dealerships on a regional basis to move models that aren’t selling fast enough.
I’ve been watching Ford margins getting smaller and smaller since COVID. By the same token, lease programs continue to worsen, driving away customers with new payments hundreds of dollars a month higher than their current lease. Bronco Raptors only have $3K in margin. Further down the range, Bronco Sports only have a few hundred bucks.
Meanwhile, Ford makes thousands of dollars of gross profit on each F Series sold.
As a dealership employee, I understand how easy it is to vilify dealerships, but in my opinion that’s ignoring the whole picture.
The question is, how much is it them needing to get rid of the floor plan loans that have kicked in and are destroying any chance of ever making another penny. After not long, cars and trucks on the lot is a death sentence to these dealers.
Unfortunately you added “had to”. If forced, well the Lincolns leave me cold. And does Chrysler have any vehicles? Which leaves Audi and Infinity. I would choose the latter, since I have greater trust in Nissan products than VW.
overall the market is too SUV centric for my tastes.
“Audi Has Lost The Plot”
Headline Of The Day!
Re Audi: I forgot what it’s called, but the hot version of the wagon. Those things are sick. If I had FU money I’d get one of those for a daily.
Lincoln 110% if we’re comparing asspirational crossover/SUVs that people seem to buy… Unless RAM and Jeep still count as Chrysler in the context of this question. If yes (and it’s someone elses $$) then a TRX or a hemi Rubicon.
“If you had to buy a new car from
AudiLOL,ChryslerNOPE,InfinitiNO THANKS, or Lincoln what would you get?”You gave us one choice. The sentence seemed to be structured to provide multiple choices, but I only saw Lincoln, so I’ll say Lincoln. Specifically, the L100.
RS6 Avant and then build myself a Hellcat 300.