It’s additionally a rejiggering for the German automaker, which entered China within the late Eighties and have become, because of a partnership with home producer FAW, the primary international premium model to adapt its autos to the Chinese language market. For a few years, Audi was synonymous with international luxurious and later grew to become the usual experience of the social gathering elite.
However the precipitous rise of Chinese language automakers, buoyed by beneficiant state assist and a brand new center class, have left international automakers enjoying catch-up. Mitsubishi stopped manufacturing in China final yr; Hyundai and Ford have closed or diminished operations at factories. This month, Basic Motors reported that its Chinese language enterprise, operated collectively with a number of Chinese language automakers, has seen gross sales fall by virtually 20 % this yr. GM stated it might restructure its enterprise within the nation, taking a $5 billion write-down within the course of.
The Volkswagen Group, which sells Audis and likewise Porsches, Bentleys, Škodas, and Lamborghinis in China, has seen a ten % dip in autos bought within the nation this yr. The drop was accountable, partly, for international gross sales retraction that led to a fall in earnings final quarter. Volkswagen stated final week it might dump a plant in Xinjiang.
Nonetheless, as Ahuja factors out, Audi has bought greater than 9 million autos in China. It desires to remain within the nation. AUDI—no rings!—is an try to take action. (Maybe confusingly, the automaker will proceed to promote autos in China underneath the heritage “four ring” model as properly.) “I don’t want to touch that legacy,” says Ahuja. “I want to evolve it further.”
The model tweaking additionally factors to deeper dynamics within the Chinese language market, the place international automakers properly past Audi (or AUDI) are scrambling to take care of a toehold amongst a brand new era of automotive consumers as Chinese language-made autos soar at dwelling—and overseas. And it factors to shifting dynamics in shopper preferences which have already proven up on roads properly outdoors the Asian nation.
Again in 2019, BMW was defending its choice to go large with its 7-Collection kidney grilles. On the time, BMW group design director Adrian von Hooydonk cited one cause for the large, imposing entrance ends was a “younger and more extroverted” China buyer. He additionally went on to say that the grilles would shrink again as “I hear from [BMW’s Shanghai Design Center] that design tastes in China are developing rapidly … they are increasingly calling for subtlety.”
Brand Translations
For one, Audi’s choice to nix the 4 rings is sensible. Logos like Audi’s 4 rings “are very hard to defend in China, from an intellectual property perspective,” says Jeff Lee, a cofounder and partner at Northern Light Venture Capital, an early-stage Chinese firm with offices in Silicon Valley. “It’s really easy to use five rings or three rings. And then there are hundreds of Chinese automakers. People just get confused.” It helps that “AUDI” is simple to pronounce to Chinese language audio system.
