Volkswagen-owned Audi is known to be suspending the great roll-out of fixed-price EV automobile gross sales, reflecting a transfer by different manufacturers to equally row again on the direct-to-consumer company gross sales.
Initially scheduled for the top of subsequent month, the choice to tweak its strategy comes quickly after Jaguar Land Rover deserted its company gross sales venture with Stellantis additionally suspending the shift to direct gross sales till at the least the top of 2026.
Audi was planning to transition by the top of April, which might have included the gross sales of fashions just like the This autumn e-tron, e-tron GT, and Q8 e-tron being bought direct to automobile consumers.
The producer now says the transition will start with the introduction of solely the brand new Audi Q6 e-tron, albeit sooner than scheduled, earlier than being prolonged to different electrical fashions ‘progressively and aligned with Audi’s new mannequin offensive over the approaching yr.’
A spokesperson for Volkswagen Group mentioned: ‘Following the profitable introduction of an company mannequin for the sale of electrical automobiles to personal customers within the UK by the Cupra, Skoda and Volkswagen manufacturers, Audi will undertake the identical mannequin from April 2024, three months sooner than initially envisaged.”
One business insider, commenting on latest bulletins by quite a lot of OEMs making u-turns on company questioned whether or not the company technique had been sufficiently thought by within the first place.
“Has the push market modified the considering? There is a a lot freer provide of vehicles into the UK market now and people vehicles have to be bought. The problem is, are there sufficient consumers for these new vehicles?”
“Rates of interest are in all probability quadruple and even 5, six instances of what they had been, when company was established. Sellers all the time paid stocking prices however really the OEM now has these vehicles and the pure funding price of that’s vital.”
