There are approximately eight days to go until extremely consequential midterm elections in the United States. Whatever your politics, whatever your beliefs, if you are a major consumer brand, it’s probably not the ideal time to get in the middle of it. This is doubly true if you’re a foreign brand. Someone tell Audi’s CEO.
The Morning Dump will wade into politics a bit, but not out of choice. Audi made that choice (or that choice was made for them). After getting absolutely wrecked by tariffs, the German brand has selected a spot in Georgia to make large SUVs. Volkswagen already has a presence there already so this seems like an efficient solution. A little less efficient, perhaps, is announcing it at a rally held by President Trump in a key swing state.
European automakers are looking to expand in the United States because China’s not a great market for them right now and, for the first time ever, Chinese automakers have overtaken Japanese ones at home for a full quarter. At least one Japanese automaker is going to shift EV to try and salvage sales there.
Audi Needs The United States
The once mighty Audi brand is now not quite so mighty. Tesla was probably the first problem, sucking up a large share of its tech-y customers. Then there was Dieselgate. China? Audi isn’t alone in having medium troubles in big China, though its weird bifurcation strategy to salvage sales there haven’t gone to plan.
Audi tried to sell a bunch of EVs in the US, but that didn’t go as predicted, either. Enthusiasts have argued that the four-ringed brand has become a three-ring circus. So long as Audi can sell Q5s at a reasonable price in the US it’s fine. Oh, right, Audi only makes cars in Europe or Mexico, and the ones in Mexico aren’t USMCA compliant so… the company has been thrashed by tariffs.
What’s the plan? The company will soon break ground (if approved) on a plant in the United States, probably to build its Defender fighter. It’ll be in Georgia, which is a fine place to build a car. Governor Georgia Brian Kemp has been effective at bringing German automakers to the state, and it probably doesn’t hurt that you can get regular flights from Atlanta to Germany. From the company:
Audi is taking a major step in its global growth strategy with plans to establish its first U.S. production site in Georgia. The company intends to invest around $4 billion and create approximately 4,500 jobs. Construction of the plant, designed for an annual production capacity of up to 200,000 vehicles, is scheduled to begin in 2027, with production planned to start in the early 2030s.
With premium SUVs tailored to North American customers and manufactured locally, Audi aims to unlock significant growth potential in one of the world’s most important premium markets. The planned investment intends to mark a long-term commitment to the United States and to establish North America as a third major pillar of Audi’s global production network alongside Europe and China.
I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough what this cost Georgia in tax breaks.
Given the nonstop coverage of the election this week it seems like a weird time to announce this. I wonder, what could have caused that?
The Döllner Went Down To Georgia, And Had Himself A Time
Blergh.
Right up front, let me just say that executives of companies are allowed to appear with politicians. It’s fine. People got upset when then President Joe Biden went to the Detroit Auto Show and hung out with GM CEO Mary Barra. People get upset when President Trump goes to an auto plant and Ford CEO Jim Farley is there. The reality is, cars shouldn’t be Republican or Democratic. It’s a much worse country when only Republicans are allowed to drive Mustangs, Democrats are restricted to Blackwings, and the Lyndon LaRouche people only get Chevy Citations.
However, there’s a general understanding that if you’re CEO of a capital-b Brand that you don’t go to a campaign rally very close to an election in a key state, as a representative of your company (unless you’re Elon Musk, obviously). CEOs are allowed to have their own politics, and if they want to voice them as private citizens, sure. Why not?
Audi CEO Gernot Döllner, who has been known for his missteps, did something quite unusual. He went to a rally held by President Trump to support candidates, and he announced the plans for the plant above. You can see his carefully prepared remarks here, and to his credit, he doesn’t say anything explicitly political. His presence there, though, is explicitly political. There’s no getting around it. And Audi had to know this. The company even brought a gold-wrapped calf Audi Q9 to the event.
It is not a good look to let your CEO be used by a prop at a campaign rally moments before a pivotal election. Just from a messaging standpoint it sets you up for people to point out things like President Trump referencing competitor Mercedes-Benz (although he was doing so to make a point that is an objectively racist lie). Unless you’re the MyPillow guy, just stay out of it.
There’s so much going on that, frankly, this might just slip under the radar here in the United States. Some people got upset when Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda wore a bunch of MAGA stuff at an event in Japan, then promptly got over it.
In Germany, though, the reporting has been harsh. Here’s a bit from Die Zeit, which is one of the most important news sources in the country:
The SPD’s transport expert, Isabel Cademartori, spoke of campaign support for Trump. “This is a disgrace, especially considering the history of the VW Group,” she said. While workers in Germany were worried about their jobs, Audi was announcing billions in investments for a new US plant under Trump “in the politically hotly contested state of Georgia, which will be crucial for the future balance of power in the Senate,” the politician said. “To campaign aggressively for an autocrat who is waging a trade war against Germany is a new low for the VW Group,” Cademartori said.
The car manufacturer Audi is a subsidiary of Volkswagen. Cadematori did not elaborate on her reference to the history of the VW Group in this context. Volkswagen was founded during the Nazi era and served as a flagship company for Hitler’s regime.
Lest you think this is just a critique from the left, here’s a bit from Politico.eu:
MEP Dennis Radtke from the center-right Christian Democratic Union party also lambasted Döllner’s appearance at the Republican campaign rally. “Donald Trump’s policies are massively damaging German industry, including the automotive industry,” he told German media outlet Handelsblatt.
“The fact that German companies invest abroad is initially a completely normal and understandable process. However, to turn this into an election campaign staging for Donald Trump is disturbing and pathetic,” he added.
Not great. An article in Manager Magazin points out that what Döllner did might technically be against company policy:
According to Audi’s “Booklet of Policies,” no publicly effective events with political parties or politicians running for election are to take place in the three months leading up to the election. Sponsorship of such events is also prohibited. Döllner’s stage presence at a Trump campaign event, just over a week before the midterm elections, seems difficult to reconcile with this self-imposed obligation.
Döllner said of his appearance that respect for the office required him to accept an invitation from the US president. He described it as a “very special moment” and a “particular setup in which I had to operate” when he appeared on the campaign stage alongside Trump.
The premier of Lower Saxony weighed in, via DW.com:
Lower Saxony premier Olaf Lies has criticized Audi CEO Gernot Döllner’s appearance alongside US President Donald Trump at a campaign rally, saying he had become part of a political spectacle.
“A campaign rally cannot be the right place to announce an investment of this magnitude,” said Lies, whose state is Volkswagen’s second-largest shareholder.
It’s also probably worth mentioning here that the board has to approve this, and the board hasn’t approved this yet. It’ll be interesting to see if any reporting turns up that Audi or Volkswagen were pressured to make the announcement early in order to give President Trump something to crow about while in the state. That’s maybe the most charitable version of this, that the company was strong-armed and not given a choice seems better than anyone thinking this was a good idea.
Even in that case, though, just send Audi of America President Vito Paladino up on stage (he was there). No one at the rally is going to know the difference, and at the very least you’re not sending the CEO up there.
Chinese Brands Outsell Japanese Brands For A Full Quarter In Europe
The last few times I’ve been to Europe it’s been less of a surprise to see Chinese cars, and more of a shock to not see that many Japanese ones. It’s gotten so bad for Japanese automakers that, according to Bloomberg, Chinese automakers are now pulling away from Japanese ones in that market:
Registrations of Chinese-branded cars roughly doubled from a year earlier in the three months through September to make up 12.7% of total sales across the region, led by hybrids, according to market researcher Dataforce. That’s put them ahead of Japanese manufacturers including Toyota Motor Corp. at 11.9%.
The advance accelerated at the end of the quarter. Chinese brands’ European share jumped in September to a record 14.5%, according to Dataforce, almost three percentage points higher than in August.
Even in Europe, it’s the decade of the hybrid. Or décennie du Hybrid, maybe.
Subaru Is Going EV-Only In Europe
I only remember Subaru sells cars in Europe because the heroes of Edgar Wright classic Hot Fuzz drive a sweet WRX at the end of the movie. Rather than try and figure out a way to keep selling boxer engine-powered cars while also meeting tougher Euro 7 emissions regulations, Nikkei Asia has learned that the company is going to go all EV:
The phaseout covers models with Subaru’s signature horizontally opposed, or boxer, engines, notably the Forester and Crosstrek SUVs. Unlike in Japan and some other markets, Subaru does not offer full hybrid models in Europe.
A key driver of the shift is the mounting cost of meeting Europe’s tightening environmental rules. The upcoming Euro 7 emissions standards are due to apply to all new cars, including models already on sale, beginning in November 2027. In addition, CO2 emissions requirements will tighten by 2030, adding to the pressure on automakers to sell more EVs.
To comply with the new laws, Subaru needs additional development, which will increase costs. In Europe, the company sold 23,000 cars in the fiscal year through this past March, less than 3% of the 890,000 it sold globally. These limited sales and Europe’s strengthening emissions standards led the company to focus on EVs.
That’s a bold strategy Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for ’em.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
It’s the end of baseball season and I’m trying to enjoy these last few games, as well as the rare moment when a team that has never won a World Series is going to get a shot. Is there a best baseball song? No. “Centerfield” by John Fogerty has to be on the list, though.
The Big Question
That John Fogerty video has a bunch of baseball cards, which has me thinking of the automotive equivalent: Matchbox Cars. What’s the best Matchbox Car/Micro Machine/Hot Wheels you’ve ever had?
Top photo: Audi
The Big Question:
…Matchbox Cars. What’s the best Matchbox Car/Micro Machine/Hot Wheels you’ve ever had?
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/0pwAAOSw7fVj2HzU/s-l1600.webp
Is there anything more classic than an El Camino with a couple of motorbikes in the bed?
TBQ: My favorite Matchbox car is one that resurfaced during adulthood in a bias-affirming case of mistaken Audi-dentity.
As a little kid, some cousins and I built a Lego town and, scale be damned, used Hot Wheels and their ilk to populate it with vehicles. The car my minifig “drove” was a white hatchback in a red and yellow rally livery.
In my teens, my brother and I got into Audis (at least until his maintenance experiences curbed that enthusiasm) and every so often I’d think of the 1/64th Coupe Quattro I had in Legoville.
When I rediscovered it decades later, it came with a surprise. Significantly dinged-up and with windows that probably didn’t start out as French headlight yellow, I took a closer look at my Quattro…
…and discovered it was actually a Saab 9000, the first real car I bought and a platform I’d go on to own five of. I guess little me knew what he liked, even if he didn’t know what it was.
https://www.reddit.com/r/saab/comments/p3j86w/behold_the_elusive_diecast_saab_9000_by_matchbox/
Mine has a bit more paint left but shares the “driven hard (on carpet) and put away in a shoebox” aesthetic.
Without question the current Hot Wheels “Beast of Turin”.
I was stunned and pleased to find it!
Me too!
TBQ: I’ve been collecting those for years and likely have thousands at this point. I really need to take inventory sometime. Hard to narrow down, but one of the first that always comes to mind is an ERTL-built Chevette in Domino’s colors with the little domino popping out the roof. It was a company promo a friend of mine gave me in 1st grade as his uncle was the manager of a nearby franchise. I thought it was so cool I never actually played with it and still have it in the collection.
Turned out to be a bit of foreshadowing as I both learned how to drive on a Chevette and ended up as the manager of a Dominos at different points later in life.
TBQ: I had many diecast cars as a child, but I don’t remember one that I would have considered my absolute best. Foggy memories at this age, I guess.
But I did receive a Father’s Day gift this year of the Hot Wheels F&F 1994 Honda del Sol…a car I did own back in the day. I’m tempted to unpackage it and roll it around.
My Corgi 1:64 Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5, with the working ejector seat that would launch a tiny red plastic guard (yes, holding a gun on Bond just like in the movie). I also had the Lotus Espirit in submarine mode, but it paled in coolness.
I think he’d have been better off staying out of it too, honestly.
A bit on the nose having a politician with the last name “Lies”, no? 😉
May The Autopian continue to try as hard as it possibly can to stay out of politics/social issues. We know where you’re coming from.
I sort of don’t “get” Audi and haven’t for awhile. Why people still buy them? Who knows…
Buyers don’t get it either. I almost never see new Audis nowadays.
TBQ: Way 2 Fast – it’s a chopped, bright orange hot rod with two gigantic blown V8s up front. What’s the only thing better than a blown V8 in a hot rod? Two of ’em!
I’ve got a yellow 2017 RS6 that I ache to open every day. Oh how the Audi have fallen.
Vorsprung durcht scheisse?
German word of the day: Scheißdreck, one of Walter Röhrl’s favorite expressions. Yiddish speakers will have an idea of what it means.
What is making matters worse is that the new factory is planned to produce ICE cars exclusively when they’re quickly becoming obsolete. The process is being accelerated, of course, by Trump’s habit of pissing off each and every country with significant oil reserves (last on the list: Norway). Döllner and Trump deserve each other.
Ha I think I get the idea, I don’t know yiddish but dreck has somewhat made it into the English lexicon.
And an ICE only factory even in the US seems short sighted. Makes me wonder if that includes hybrids at least? My brother has a plug in Q5 on lease and has been quite happy with it. If there’s one silver lining to all of Trump’s nonsense is that it might actually be speeding up EV adoption.
Audi’s CEO managed to build consensus among a wide political spectrum in Germany, from the left to the right: they all want to kick the guy in the nuts. Notable.
I still collect them, so my best or favorite changes pretty often. From my childhood, though, a lifted white Ford baja looking truck (with a Valvoline-style colorway and a big 63 decal on the hood) and a Group C style racecar with the engine cover that would hinge open.
Audi. Less respected now.
The first toy that comes to mind isn’t a Hot Wheels but an ersatz Johnny Lightning Ferrari 275 GTB.
Old Twin Mill was always my favorite Hot Wheels car. I have a green one somewhere in the house from when I was a kid.
I have a tiny model GT86 that was a corporate gift from Toyota to Lotus. I got it because I have a GT86. It sits on my desk next to a Lotus Europa in the same scale that was a Bahar-era staff gift.
But my best Hotwheels is the MX5 that my wife made tiny stickers for so it looked like my old drift car.
Georgia is going to run out of workers at some point. Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee have turned into new and foreign manufacturing belt.
Audi has such a boring product I don’t really care what they are up to. I bet the majority of people leasing them and buying newer ones don’t care either. They are just buying the rings and the car some influencer told them to buy. Because it’s a hack to get basically the car the top of the pyramid influencer drives.
We are heading toward brands not meaning much anyway. Just the sum of their their parts. Who is the supplier for whatever. So brands will just be for gullable people. Audi is already there. I’ve seen it happen with tech, it’s happening with fashion, it’s happening with cars in other markets. Brands might be turning more into liabilities then assets. Brand loyalty is a thing of the past. Now it’s whatever is in flash in the pan.
I’ve also heard more and more union guys displeased with their unions. It’s been on an upwards tick. But I’ve never heard anything close to this level. I don’t know what will come of it or mean for the future of trades and manufacturing.
When Ford tried to underpay skilled workers in Tennessee, they had no takers.
On a more serious note, if someone spells Cindy as XYNDI, should they be allowed to operate any motor vehicle?
Only an Audi
That gold Q9 is really something and I feel it’s not getting the attention it deserves. Rather than a playful post-modern symbol, like Philippe Starck’s golden turd on the Asahi building in Tokyo, it’s gold-wrapped giant pile of stinking terrible design and oozing of bad judgements.
Seems quite on-brand with both Audi and Trump. Marie Antrumpette’s “Let Them Eat Cake” moment is nigh upon us.
It’s like a delivery vehicle for Saddam Hussein’s Cheesecake Factory.
COTD
Audi US Exec: We need a car to appeal to Trump while we do this announcement. Any ideas?
Some Peon: How about we get our bigliest car and make it gold?
Audi US Exec: Quick! Promote that person!
Are they going to build that big beautiful Audi factory right next door to the big beautiful Scout factory? Will those be next to the big beautiful Rivian factory?
Big Beautiful Snipe Hunting Ranch.
Audi’s ability to consistently shoot themselves in the dick is downright uncanny at this point. For the first time in years they appear to have a handful of competitive and interesting products…particularly the new gas A6, Q7, and *barfs a little bit* I guess the Q9. Also the Nuvolari is generating clicks whether we like it or not.
So what does Audi do? Send their much maligned idiot CEO to a fascist rally to present a goddamn golden car to the wildly unpopular fascist ringleader whose party appears to be set up to either eat shit or mega eat shit in the next week and change. I just don’t understand how there wasn’t a single person that said “hey buddy, this might not be a great idea”.
It’s breathtaking incompetence, especially when you (I mean everyone, literally everyone knows this) remember what Germany was up to 100ish years ago. Some things uh…happened, and while I’m not going to be reductionist and claim that everyone who supports the current regime is a N@zi (trying not to trigger the auto review here) it does seem as though every N@zi supports the current regime
Audi was never on my shopping list to begin with because I don’t enjoy setting money on fire, but now they’re on double secret probation. And I’m sending this to my parents, who buy Audis! TAKE THAT!
Yeah, that.
Also their products are not terribly interesting for the money. I sat in one at the auto show and marveled at how average it was for the price. Then I sat in a Genesis G70 and could only think that there was ZERO reason to buy any Audi when Genesis exists.
Yeah, racing pedigree, Quattro, whatever. Most people just buy the big bland SUV thing to commute to work. The entire Genesis lineup looks better inside and out.
So yeah, stupid political stuff and underwhelming products. Will Audi be the next Mitsubishi?
The average entry level and even mid tier German luxury interior is comparable to, or even worse than the interior of a highly spec’d RAV4, CRV, Santa Fe, etc. It’s staggering how far they’ve fallen.
But do all those Japanese and Korean vehicles have more screens than Best Buy? I think not!
And can you enjoy 1-3 years of renting one for only $699 a month? Checkmate, liberals!
Shed a tear for early 2000s Audi.
Will Chrysler be the next Audi?
No, but maybe they can be the next AUDI
Trump does look like a truly terrible option, until you examine the actions and future plans of the wildly over confident alternatives.
Then, not so much.
Out of all the takes on this site this is definitely one of them!
On 2nd Amendment fantasies alone, if it was a horse race, the Anti-constitution crowd isn’t even making it to the gate, as far as viable elections go.
Or maybe they got on the horse facing the wrong way, might be the way a campaign manager would describe non-starter strategies.
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. The VAG executives are so detached from reality that I even believe that idiot Döllner had no idea what he was doing. The damage, however, is done.
TBQ: I remember finding a blue NOS Majorette VW K70 in the souvenir shop of the park in Dortmund in the late 80s, at least 15 years after it was discontinued. It marked my step from collecting cars in order to play with them to just displaying and looking at them. Luckily, I managed to keep the addiction under control. 🙂
He certainly has no business running a car brand if his judgement is that cloudy.
Frankly, none of the various VAG CEOs have.
Majorette was the King of 1:64. Loved the torsion beam suspension!
I’ve got a black and gold Tamiya (?) Lotus Esprit that has a little lever that lets you pop up the headlights. Has to be at least 45 years old.
I’m not a big Fogerty fan, but I like this song. And if my team isn’t going to be in the World Series, I’m happy with this matchup. I’m sad the season is almost over though!