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].Â
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?
It wasn’t new, but we picked up a ’21 Pacifica hybrid last summer and are very happy with it so far, although friends with an older first-year hybrid have been having plenty of just-out-of-warranty issues, so we’ll have to see how ours holds up as we approach that point. So, I guess Chrysler it would be then.
Boycott American Chinese built cars. The majority of people have no clue cars they buy from and American nameplate are actually foreign. GM is terrible worth this.
As someone suffering Stockholm syndrome with General Motors dealers the last several decades, there are a few forbidden fruits I would grab in a fire sale. I would happily abscond with a Lincoln aviator. Gorgeous style in&out plus 400-something hp and an actual chassis beneath it? Wont get that in anything from Mdme.Barren. I’ll take a manual trans, live axle wrangler as well. GM isn’t aware that a vehicle can function with just 2 doors, and they think Manuel Tranny is a darling they should hire asap. A grand Cherokee might be worth grabbing though I prefer the prior generation. Regardless, an affordable mid size rwd-based SUV is desired but verboten at GM. On the way out, a 300s would be ok. I’ve always liked the exterior and I’ll ignore the interior whilst appreciating an old Mercedes rwd with decent space . It’s certainly a winner over the Malibu. Now, with ski mask on, I’m headed to the Audi franchisee to take delivery of my a8l and a leftover TT. My last a8 was a trophy wife. Addictive to behold, thrilling to ride hard, tenacious in its grip but always implying a threat of infidelity. No Cadillac has come close to providing the level of accommodation nor the prowess of quattro in snow. Size matters too and the a8l delivered in ways only a 7-series or s-class might match. Still cheaper than the uber-ugly celery-stick. If Lexus has an LS sitting around, they can send that right over as well. Buick never quite figured out the formula and instead went 180 degrees from American sedans to Asian import cuvs so An LS or even ES would fit nicely in that spot. These brands might be hurting but they still have bright spots to make a GM customer envious.
Audi, they are the only one of those brands sold/still sold in Australia…
But it would be over my dead body 🙂
We had a Q5 rental while the Stelvio was getting its rear bumper fixed. It was…fine. It did car stuff. It also did Audi stuff like randomly bear-hugging you with the seatbelts when its front sensors detected a ghost car while sitting at a traffic light as it screamed “it’s coming right for us” in a series of loud, German-accented warning beeps.
Otherwise, entirely forgettable and no real compelling reason to purchase one over something else. I think of the current Audi lineup as either a rich man’s Volkswagen or a poor man’s Porsche, which is probably equal parts accurate and unfair.
That being said, I would love to have one of the original Audi V8 Quattros from the early 90s. Those things are awesome.
Why would I have to buy a new car from Audi, Chrysler, Infiniti, or Lincoln? Has there been a perfect storm of all other manufacturers suddenly going out of business and all the used cars of the world hoarded by people who knows what they gots?
I have no idea what most people want anymore. I’m so far up my own butt on what is good/bad, I find myself utterly confused why people buy most of the crap they do.
That there are SO many NA 4-cyl mini-SUVs out there makes no sense to me. They’re not fun, they’re not cool looking, they’re not really anything other than “an car”. I see countless RAV4s and CR-Vs, so they’re not selling because they’re cheap. You can get an Escape or Blazer for less. I mean, I guess they’re reliable, but is that really it?
It seems like the schlock that Audi/Lincoln makes would be perfect and be doing a lot better than it is. They represent the upgraded “an car”. Maybe not reliable enough compared to Lexus and Acura. However, I do see a lot of Teslas around, so I don’t know that reliability is as prized as I had thought?
I really have no idea what people think about when they go car shopping. It’s like they just go outside and go into the first dealership they come across, buy whatever is being sold.
I know what I look for
Low total purchase and running costs
Regular fuel (if ICE)
Energy efficiency
Longevity
Reliability
DIYability
Utility
Low NVH
Ease of use
What I care much less about
Status
Non functional styling
Gadgets (especially IMO stupid ones like electronic doors and logo projections)
I’d be happy to buy a luxury car but in my eyes a Lexus is a Toyota and an Audi just a VW.
I think there is a common theme here: solid, respected brands who aspire to move upmarket while cutting off the mid / lower market are struggling. In giving up what made them great in the first place, they head for the same ideas everyone has at the same time. The idea is not necessarily bad, such as Jeep wanting an answer to Lincoln demographics, or Audi starting to think they’re Porsche etc. But it’s basic, I think lazy and of course, obvious. Also failing because there’s only so much market out there. Meanwhile, fresh faces with solid, widely spread product lines are taking over. See Genesis for exhibit one.
I wish Audi luck, I truly love this brand ever since their Quattro days, and a 2008 S5 V8 I road-tripped years ago remains a high water mark for driving enjoyment.
Audis don’t look like Audis any more. In the ’90s and ’00s they were sharp, handsome sedans and the A4, A6, and A8 all looked unique while still looking like Audis. The current lineup is too… muddled. Too many models that look too similar, with too many fussy, tacky, complicated details. They’ve lost that German austerity that looked so good. Audi needs to revisit the Bauhaus.
This…This is the answer.
They are not alone but, when you see one up close, new Audis look plasticky, not really Vorsprung durch Technik.
For a time, the Marvel movies were the biggest and best advertisements for Audi. When the movies took a dip so did Audi.
I probably wouldn’t get a new car from any but if we’re talking mr millionaire fancy pants buying a NEW car an rs3 ranks higher than a lincoln appliance
If not an RS6 Avant, then god help me, a Lincoln.
I would seriously consider buying the next generation hybrid Lincoln LS sedan or hatchback. Yeah, I know, there won’t be one. No way I would do an Audi. I never knew anyone who ever brought up reliability as an attribute. They all look the same and the remaining sedans you can find in some configuration as a VW. Will never own another Chrysler product. Every time I see a Wagoneer (especially in white) I exclaim to my wife that it looks like a big refrigerator ambling down the road.
I can see how Tesla would be taking Audi sales away. Theyre powertrains are boring, when you want a decent german powertrain you get a bmw, if you dont care about ICE vehicles you jump straight from audi and get a tesla bc the audi ev’s are so expensive.
Test drove a Q8 E-Tron recently, its lack of one pedal drive was a deal breaker for me. It felt like a weird middle ground between EV and a really heavy ICE car.
I am amazed at the number of votes Lincoln is getting. Has anyone been to a car rental counter in the past year. That is all you get. Audi is second; in the past year, I’ve rented an A4, A6, Q5 and Q7. Lincoln also litters rental car lots. I’ve yet to find one that I would put money on.
“If you had to buy a new car from Audi, Chrysler, Infiniti, or Lincoln what would you get?”
I think I’d go with a Lincoln Corsair plug in hybrid.
Why? Well basically Chrysler only has vehicles too big for my needs. I don’t want an Audi because German Quality. Infiniti has no hybrids and their 4 cyl vehicles have either troublesome Mercedes engines or the troublesome Variable Compression 4 cyl engines.
So that leaves Lincoln. The Corsair is a little bigger than what I need, but with the 4 cyl plug in hybrid powertrain, at least it would be fuel efficient. And it’s basically an evolution of the plug in hybrid powertrain that is in my C-Max. And it’s a reliable powertrain after Ford worked out some kinks in the early to mid 2010s.
One thing that is annoying is they have the hybrid powertrain only available in the highest level trim.
And I priced one out and it came out to nearly CAD$62,000… a pretty optimistic price for a gussied up Ford Escape plug-in hybrid… which you can get for around CAD$42,000
Mind you the Escape hybrid comes in FWD form with 18″ wheels while the Lincoln has eAWD and 19″ wheels. Both of these “features” the Lincoln has are actually negatives to me. I don’t need AWD and the bigger wheels are unnecessary and just make tire replacements more expensive. Plus they make the ride incrementally more harsh.
So when I look at the offerings of Audi, Chrysler, Infiniti and Lincoln, the Lincoln Corsair is the “Least Worst” of the bunch.
But honestly, I’d rather have a Prius Prime, a Ford Escape Plug in Hybrid in the lowest trim available or a Tesla Model 3 long range RWD (which costs about the same as the Lincoln Corsair Plug In hybrid… and has way better all around performance and efficiency).
Likely an A3, because it’s the smallest and it’s a car. If the Nautilus wasn’t so very big, it would be the answer.
I owned Audis back when their top line model (200 Turbo Quattro Wagon) was avaialable exclusively with a manual transmission. Fast forward to today and the only Audi product that I am even remotely interested in (RS3) is only available as a sedan which looks like a shrunken A4 which looks like a shrunken A6 which looks like a shrunken A8. JFC. I don’t want the godforsaken sedan. Give me a hatch, give me a wagon. I’ll take the DSG if you insist.
At the upper end, there is a RS6, but it comes across as too boy-racer to me. I’ve built and priced an E63S wagon and a CTS-5V. Frankly none of them suit my use case enough to justify the price. But of the three, the Audi ranks last. As a former Audi owner, Audi was my dream car for a couple decades and now I don’t even look at them.
If I had to choose from the QOTD list, first choice would easily be a Ram 3500 followed closely by a Pacifica. Both are vehicles that have stayed true to their roots and do the job they were intended for exceptionally well.
I bought a new A5 sportback in the spring of 2023, in that small spot on the chart toward the end of the inventory crisis and before interest rates shot up. Got a killer rate, good price, and cash back, which helped a lot. Also had very specific requirements (new, sedan or wagon, ICE or PHEV, handles well, all wheel drive … the list of available vehicles is short). Nineteen months ago was a very different time though.
Part of the appeal of the car is that it was at the end of the model run. The recalls were generally gone, the car still had physical HVAC controls and an actual volume knob, no capacitive controls … but all modern safety features and felt screwed together well. The interior wasn’t MB levels of great, but was still more attractive than my wife’s Lexus. The 2023 A5 is legitimately an older design (not Lexus old, but older than MB and BMW), and that was actually a selling point to me as I wasn’t ready to make the leap to electric and wanted a platform that had been in use for a while.
I dunno, I’m happy with the car for sure. But it kind of feels like Audi right now is on the Nissan/Infiniti downward slope regarding product age (and using incentives to move a rapidly aging volume lineup). The electric options aren’t compelling, there’s one PHEV option, and the ICE lineup is both old and stagnant.
The B9s are the last of the good Audis. B10 is all-in on screens and capacitive touch junk. I had a B9 allroad and it was a genuinely great car. I ran out of space in it though which is why I moved on. Would love an A6 allroad or RS6 avant but pricing-wise they never made sense to me.
Lincoln, not even a consideration of the others. Not my kind of thing, but it seems like the only honest brand of the bunch, building vehicles that sensibly fit the category. Sporting CUVs—especially large ones—with shit-riding suspensions and dumbass boy racer settings will never make sense to me. If I’m in a big damn luxury vehicle, I think it should have cosseting seats and ride with a fancy interior with nice materials and Lincoln seems to fit that better than those others. Plus, those other particular brands in question are all junk I wouldn’t buy anything from, yes, even compared to a Ford product.
Out of that list. Definitely Lincoln. A Navigator is like a Range Rover but broken less often, and when it does break, you can get it serviced in most zip codes.
As it happens I actually need a wagon (not any type of CUV), so of the options on your list, I guess I’m getting an Audi — along with the most comprehensive warranty imaginable.
The only problem is, what are the chances that the inevitable loaner car would also be a wagon?
I forgot to mention that Audi has historically been one of the stingiest brands with lease incentives among the luxury set. Leasing an A4 or Q5 almost always cost more than the equivalent BMW. You had to really WANT and Audi to lease one.
Now that I’ve owned a bunch of VW/Audi cars and currently a 12 year old Porsche, I can’t see why I’d shell out a bunch of extra money for an Audi versus a VW (other than for the engine). The interiors are not very nice anymore. Basically equal to VW.
If I had a need for a van, I would buy a Pacifica in a heartbeat. Have had a couple as rentals, very nice, and without the Toyota/Honda tax or having to set foot in a KIA dealership. Challengers with the hemi have been a dirty secret pleasure for me for years – rented LOTS of them. And if they made a factory convertible I would probably own one.
I guess if gun to my head and I had to buy an Audi, the A3 is a betta Jetta. Had one of those as a rental recently too. Lincoln? Uh, no, so very NOKD. Too much money for gussied up Fords.
As a young architect in 2010… A silver A4 is what I would have _liked_ to drive. A silver 9-2x was what was actually in my price range. Young architects today are, in general, not driving Teslas as they can’t afford them. Established architects are… assuming they were purchased before Elon went totally apeshit. Most of the architects I know appreciate Teslas for the engineering… but find supporting Musk to be a tough pill to swallow these days. Rivians are getting a hard look.
I bought my 9-2X under the “everyone gets the employee discount” program GM had for a while. I got it for less than the Impreza it was based on.
Today? I’d buy an A4 or A6 Avant if they were available here. I tried to rent an A6 Avant in Germany recently. Wound up with a 3-series estate… which while nice, was not nearly as nice as the Audi. The A6 Avant is simply beautiful.
Of course… the RS6 Avant would be nice. But I’m a mid-career architect… not a senior VP in a large firm. Or a surgeon.
In Europe, you get the Y at 500 USD per month with leasing. That’s quite affordable
It’s all relative. If you are paying rent in a major market, paying off student loans from grad school and trying to afford daycare? $500 a month may not be “quite affordable.”
I bought a 2023 A6 Allroad with the cladding painted the body color about two years ago. I wish the regular Avant sold here, but what can you do. You can lower the suspension down to the same level as the Avant. It’s been great for me, no issues, spacious, fast, and great for jaunts up into the Cascades to go skiing. (I live about 30 miles away from a local ski area.). I’m very happy with my purchase, it even gets great mileage on the highway, which is most of my driving. Plus, I hardly ever, ever see anyone else driving the same car as me, lol.
(I custom ordered it, and that took like 7 months at the time, so that may not be everyone’s bag.)
I enjoyed renting from Silvercar when I could. An A4 was certainly better than chancing getting yet another Altima from Hertz…
But I have never gotten the point of Audis in general, and they are the one common Euro maker I never bothered with. BMW does sporty way better, Mercedes does luxury way better. And I hated Audi ergonomics (let’s put the volume knob where the passenger’s knee can easily reach it). VWs with delusions of grandeur. And the lesser ones on VW platforms literally all drive like Golfs with stiff suspensions. Not a bad thing per se, the Golf is a perfectly lovely car, but why pay the premium for what is basically the same experience?