Has Audi Sold The Soul Of Its Cars For "Truth In Engineering"?

It’s difficult to accurately capture the essence of Audi. Of Germany’s Big “Three” luxury automakers, the Ingolstadt-based company is perhaps best known for its innovative engineering and the tech inside its cars. Unfortunately these factors don’t really give a car soul. Or do they? We recently had a week with the 2017 Audi A4 and spent much of our time trying to connect with it. This was surprisingly harder than expected. Most cars derive character from a few places. There’s the design of the exterior, for example.
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vdiv - 10/12/2016 4:00:11 PM

+3 Boost

Do you put a #tesla tag on all articles now? :)

countguy - 10/12/2016 4:36:20 PM

+1 Boost

Yes, that ship sailed long ago.

cidflekken - 10/12/2016 5:02:48 PM

+3 Boost

Not sure I would ever really classify Audi as "soulful' to begin with. From a design perspective, the closest they got was the 2008 A5/S5. Since then they've managed to neuter that design. From a driving perspective, they are very competent cars, but inciting a soulful experience would be hard to imagine. My S5 was great to drive, but only at 95%. As compared to my 2015 BMW where, when put in the right driving modes, get my heart racing and puts a smile on my face.

MDarringer - 10/12/2016 6:10:21 PM

+3 Boost

"Audi has soul." Said no one ever.

TheSteve - 10/12/2016 10:41:05 PM

+2 Boost

I don't care for the styling direction in which they've gone. I also don't care for the general "tech for the sake of tech" theme. Acura is the mid-market Japanese equivalent, with their weird segmented headlights, just to show off "we are tech".

FWIW, I'm not tech adverse. I'm the kind of guy that build his own computer, and sets up a whole-house media system from scratch. I believe in using the right tools for the job, rather than "throw some tech at it."

GermanNut - 10/13/2016 11:11:17 AM

0 Boost

The new A4 is selling very well so this publication can talk all it wants about "soul" but Audi is focusing on sales.

cidflekken - 10/13/2016 1:04:59 PM

+4 Boost

Well, Mercedes outsold Audi by over 30k units globally last month. For a volume driver and a brand new offering, it doesn't appear the A4 is contributing. Even in the US, the A4 isn't selling as well as it has in the past when it's reached sales of almost 4k units consistently. Yes, it's beating last year's numbers, but the 2015 sales numbers were based on sales from an aged design, so they were relatively low to begin with.

MDarringer - 10/14/2016 8:40:07 AM

+2 Boost

VW is putting a lot of money on the hoods of Audis in a desperate attempt to buy market share as VW--that overlaps with Audi in price--is probably irrevocably tarnished.

GermanNut - 10/13/2016 1:43:15 PM

0 Boost

Is that a demand or supply issue? Maybe supply can't keep up with demand? The 3-Series sales are falling off a cliff so buyers are looking at other brands besides BMW. Where are they looking? Mercedes-Benz and its C-Class? Yes, but not all of them.

cidflekken - 10/14/2016 1:09:36 AM

+2 Boost

Why do you always have to drag BMW into the conversation? The facts are facts, related to Audi sales only. And why rationalize supply vs demand when we're well into the new A4's introduction so supply shouldn't be an issue. I've heard zilch about there being any supply issues for the A4, unlike when the CLA had major supply issues at introduction.

carsnyc - 10/14/2016 9:35:21 AM

+1 Boost

Forget it cidflekken, GermanNut's sole goal in this blog is to make Audi look desperate and more of a social climber by trashing BMW, Merc and Lexus, in that order.