Tesla owners remain extremely loyal to the brand, even if that loyalty has slipped a little in recent years. The main beneficiary of that slip has been Toyota, which has picked up a lot of slack. The change in behavior of Tesla owners says a lot about the state of the larger car market and the way the brand has positioned itself.
Obviously, hybrids are key, and automakers with hybrids continue to largely do better than automakers without those offerings (GM being an exception). Audi is a good example of a brand that has shed its hybrid offerings and now faces a shaky future. Not far away, Porsche is also in rough shape, and has worked out a deal with its employees to cut another 5,000 workers.
I was hoping the Gordie Howe International Bridge was going to open while I was in Detroit last week, but I missed it by a few days. It is opening today, which is a boon for the car industry, even if the bridge itself represents a lot of the conflict between the countries it’s supposed to connect.
A Tesla Owner Who Goes To A Franchised Dealer Is About As Likely To Get A Hybrid As An EV
You know I love a chart, and this one from Edmunds is interesting. It shows what Tesla owners are getting after they trade in a vehicle to a franchised dealer. Obviously, there are no franchised Tesla or Lucid or whatever dealers, so we’re just looking at the people who took a Tesla they owned and decided to get something from a more traditional OEM.
Overall, Tesla owners are loyal, although the most recent brand loyalty survey from LexisNexis shows the brand dropping from its usual position of most or second-most loyal to third with a 55.9% loyalty rate, which is still better than the overall average of 51.4%. There are probably a lot of reasons for this, including the fact that Tesla owners were limited in choices for good EVs a few years ago, and now there’s a lot more competition.
As you can see, the Decade of the Hybrid continues to march forward, with Tesla trade-ins to franchised dealers jumping from 5.4% in 2021 to a full 20.5% in Q2 2026. Is the drop in EVs from 40.2% to 22% a reflection of a pulling-forward of sales from people trading in cars to get ahead of the end of tax credits? Probably. This is also likely reflected in the jump in gas-powered vehicles.
“The big story right now is that hybrids are delivering the sweet spot consumers are looking for,” said Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmunds. “As the math on EVs shifted following the federal tax credit ending, legacy automakers stepped in to catch shoppers who want efficiency without pure-battery commitments. Seeing experienced EV owners make that pivot tells you a lot about the current state of the overall market, not just Tesla.”
That’s a fair point. Tesla is good for a grabby headline, but likely everyone is into hybrids now given the relatively low cost and the fact that some popular models (RAV4, Camry) are only available as HEVs.
There’s something also curious here, which is that Toyota has grown from the seventh most popular trade-in (6.9% of total in 2021) to the most popular (17.3% in 2026). Who fell? German automakers.
“Axing the Model S and X officially marks the end of Tesla’s status as a luxury brand,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds. “German luxury brands once split over a third of Tesla trade-ins and now they’re capitalizing on roughly one in seven trades, with Toyota as the biggest beneficiary. Tesla’s buyers, like its products, have gone mass market.”
Again, the data provides a lot of insight into how Tesla has changed. In 2021, there aren’t a lot of EV trade-ins because your options were, what, the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf? Who is trading in a Model S on a Chevy Bolt? Now that Model 3 and Model Y have taken over the bulk of Tesla sales, of course the overall complexion of trade-ins changes as well.
Tesla is no longer a luxury brand, unless you consider everyone having a strong opinion about what you drive a luxury.
Audi Continues To Be In Rough Shape
I remember writing an article about how Audi was lost, and I thought it was recent. My “Audi Has Lost The Plot” TMD is actually from January 2025. There are some interesting products on the horizon, so it’s not hopeless. The situation is, however, dire.
The company just downgraded its own expectations due to underperformance in the Middle East, North America, and especially China. The automaker (which includes Bentley and Lamborghini as subsidiaries) expected to hit a profit margin somewhere between 5-7% this year. So far, the company is at 3.6%.
Things will have to change.
“Global challenges are increasing the pressure to act,” Audi CFO Juergen Rittersberger said.
“To remain competitive on the global stage, we must work together with the Volkswagen Group to realign our business model and implement large-scale structural improvements.”
The first step is probably reducing capacity, but that’s not a growth strategy.
Porsche To Cut 5,000 Jobs
Porsche has a new CEO and is facing the same problems every other Volkswagen luxury brand is facing in terms of tariffs, demand, China, et cetera.
As Bloomberg reports, the company is going to reduce headcount to try to right-size its production costs:
Porsche AG agreed to eliminate 5,000 jobs by 2035 as part of a deal with labor officials that protects its main German sites and rules out compulsory redundancies.
The positions will be cut through a mixture of natural attrition, expanded partial-retirement programs and voluntary severance agreements, Porsche and its general works council said Monday. Employment and site protections at Zuffenhausen and Weissach will be extended through the end of 2035.
The agreement underscores the mounting pressure across Porsche parent Volkswagen AG, which last week warned that group revenue may fall as much as 3% this year as its China slump deepens.
Between Audi and Porsche, Porsche remains the stronger brand with a little more aura.
The Gordie Howe Bridge Finally Opens
After becoming a bit of a political football, the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Canada and the United States is finally open today. That’s fun. It looks incredible.
The Detroit Free Press was at the opening ceremony on the Canadian side, where surely things have cooled off a bit:
At a question and answer session with media following the news conference and ribbon cutting, Gregor Robertson, Canada’s minister of housing and infrastructure, attributed the decision to disinvite U.S. officials to the event to President Donald Trump’s plan to impose 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods.
“We felt the focus should be celebrating here in Canada,” Robertson said, adding that there were some Americans at the event.”
I wonder who the token Americans were.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
“I’ll be here in the morning” from Townes Van Zandt to start off the week just feels right.
The Big Question
What does Audi have to do to turn it around?
Top shot: Toyota, Tesla
How to fix Audi:
5 Cylinder ALL the models, from NA to varying levels of boostEliminate “S-Line” aka poser trimSell A4 wagon with 5 cylinder turbo (TTRS/RS3) and 6spd manual in Nogaro blue. Give it some RS2 inspired bumper designs.
Profit!
Love me some 5 cylinder, but you missed only Brown Manual TDI Wagon to complete the phalanx of unsalable niche cars sure to wipe the company out.
Let Audi die. Its time has come.
TBQ:
Bring back an Auto Union 1000 Sp of some sort. How it’d ever pass a crash test is anyone’s guess, but it’d be fun to see.
What ever happened to the “I, Robot” Audi? They need something to make people stand up and take notice.
TBQ: They need to find their niche. Their current lineup is all over the place and nothing jumps out as being particularly better than anyone else. The rally schtick isn’t really there anymore, the performance stuff is nice but other than some halo models the rest are meh, same for luxury. Premium price for a slightly above average car/suv. They have the experience to focus on something but they just have to figure it out.
Looks like you answered your own question…
TBQ: Take a page from the book of Pontiac and put a screaming German eagle on every hood.
I approve of this. Giant flaming chicken on the hood and I would buy one. Though Germans and Eagle symbols might not end well because of a certain party during a certain war.
Nah, the German Eagle was an imperial symbol used by the Kaiser, and mostly dispensed of along with all the trimmings of monarchy during a certain unpleasant era. Also, I think the time has come to stop giving a long-dead political movement more power than it deserves. (Triggered by the neighborhood Karens once again giving my Hindu neighbors shit because their prayer shrine happens to have a swastika on it, and coastal AWFLs can’t be bothered to crack a history book).
So I was at a wedding several years ago between a person of Indian decent and a person of very northern European decent. The aisle created a very stark ethnic line, many of people of a certain age from the old countries. The ceremony was Hindu, thankfully an abbreviated one as those can go on for several days. Everything was as traditional as possible while conforming to time and safety regulations (no open fires, etc) including the officiant, a non English-speaking Hindu priest performing the ceremony in Sanskrit so nobody understood any of it.
We got to the part in the ceremony when the priest held up the coconut for the blessing…the coconut with a big, bright swastika painted on it. There was a very loud, very noticeable collective gasp from one side of the aisle quickly followed by looks of puzzlement and amusement from the other. Later at the reception many of the guests learned more of the backstory of the swastika that day from people who have a much more positive association with it.
Good to hear knowledge was passed on. Something like half the human population has had the swastika as a positive symbol for longer than recorded history, and continue to use it as such today. Being offended because some shit Austrian painter stole it for his club of losers and throwing a hissy fit every time you see it today, regardless of context, is a Portlandia skit that didn’t make the final cut (or maybe it did, I’m only a few seasons in).
He used it as a positive symbol too. Unfortunately his idea of positive…wasn’t.
I’m sure there has been at least one person that traded an early model s for a bolt. Some of the bolt guys were ev1 guys and they were model s guys in-between. They look at the bolt like an ev1 for whatever reason.
Its likey many of those Tesla trade ins previously had Toyotas so it’s more of a home coming. Prius and other Toyota hybrid to Tesla pipeline was huge for a number of years.
I’m not sure what you do with Audi kill it ? Their new bev looks ok but I bet if they sell it in the US it won’t sell great. Probably won’t do great it Europe. Non starter in China if they decide to sell it there. They can probably sell a band aid beige or black lease machine in parts of the world still. Throw levels of hybrid into boring as they can be cuv. Do the same with a 3 row. And have some lease specials. Let the “influencers” find them. If that doesn’t work start giving leases to a few higher profile ones. Or giving an absolutely insane warranty might help. Something like 15 years 150k mi.
TBQ: Kill off e-tron NOW. Make sure every model has a hybrid option. Fix your network of stealerships. Put more competitive cash on the table for buyers trading in other luxury brands. Sponsor all of the Detroit major league sports teams.
If they do all these and it works, I’m sending them the bill for my consulting fee.
No mention of Bugatti. I kind of wonder if most of the higher end toy companies are not suffering from monetary uncertainty?
Didn’t they get sold off recently?
I don’t know, guess I will google that. at any rate, youtuber went there mid week at 3 or so in the afternoon and there was literally nobody there.
Bugatti is owned by Rimac now, not VW.
I suggest Audio would benefit from a solid publicity stunt. It’s time to convict the world that the “u” has been pronounced wrong all along and they are actually “A-OOO-Dee”
Oh my god; it’s better than I thought! An Audi! I’m getting a car!
“Uh, Peter, there’s a T in there. That says audit.”
No, Brian, it’s a foreign car. The T is silent. I’m getting an Audi!
Offer a compelling vehicle? I had to go to their website to see what they’re offering currently. I occasionally see Audis, and they have much the same issue as the CR-V–they are immediately forgettable. Which is fine for a mass-market Honda that is a good reliable choice, but not good for a luxury automaker with higher maintenance costs and a reputation for being a bit less reliable.
I saw a drop top RS6 yesterday, pretty nice looking, but the Audi Circles are like the Nissan badge and GM bowtie. they just have the stigma of offering vehicles with many problems and often expensive repair costs, or massive headaches for DIY’ers
I’ve never seen an RS6 convertible in the wild, but it does look nice, admittedly. But, yeah, the problems and repair costs are probably a big part of the issue.
The q5 is the band aid beige lease machine they can sort of move. The “influencers” got them them because their “influencers” had the Porsche, lambos, and Bentleys. They look at them as a the baby version of those. Some even called it a “hack” “it’s the same car you guys”. Similar thing happened in China if you were making more then vw money but not Porsche money. Audi fit. Now they buy any number of domestic brands. “Influencers” moved on to Tesla? Now appear scattered.
Yeah, the Q5 is what I think I see somewhat frequently. It’s just so boring that I can’t remember if it’s that or any number of other generic SUVs. The Porsche is identifiable–if they think paying luxury car insurance for the forgettable Audi is a flex, I guess that’s worth something to them.
It doesn’t help it only comes in about 3 boring colors shades of beige black and white.
They depreciate enough insurance might not be too bad after a year or two. But I’m sure many if not most of the people buying them don’t think about insurance or taxes and only their lease or loan payments. They certainly don’t think about depreciation if they are buying them new.
That’s a good point about not thinking about insurance or depreciation. The number of people I’ve had to push to check insurance before buying a different car is astounding.
You are always welcome back in Detroit to check out the bridge, especially if you bring something at least as good as an Explorer Tremor to the meetup.
I’m trying to make sense of the Porsche cuts. Someone who knows more, who exactly are they eliminating?
TBQ:
Clean up the styling.
Reduce the model/variation count.
Slap a loooong warranty on everything to lure back the people who have been scared off by the reliability headaches.
Hire someone from Pantone to explain colours to your product management.
Silver, silver, grey, black, white, and matte silver. Perfect for a lease-car.
Also their EV naming is stupid “let’s just name everything e-tron” because yeah that won’t confuse the hell out of everyone.
I think they were going after a certain demo with that. Not sure it really worked. They recently announced the a2 bev. So perhaps they are killing it. Still terrible colors as far as ive seen.
I fear the Audi color guy has been hired by pantone. Their last few colors of the year look like Audi colors and I think they might have actually been.
Accept a free $400 million plane from Qatar? Sure, you bet! Accept a free $6 billion dollar bridge from Canada? Uh uh. Apparently, not enough Arabs in Canada or not enough chandeliers on the bridge. All good now that Canada agreed to share toll profits with the USA. What bag of dicks.
It seems a pretty blatant case of Billionaires patting each other on the back kind of corruption to me.
Tesla’s were never luxury cars. It’s just that they were historically bought by wealthy urbanites.
Like all things Elon, they were the equivalent of the Emporer’s new clothes.
not saying he was not smart up front to latch on to the greenies in hollyweird to make some hype, but they were expensive as most EV are/were. and thus had to have some exclusivity angle to justify them.
How to fix Audi?
(1) Hire your designers back from the Koreans
(2) Pick a name for your electrics that’s not French for “turd” (étron)
(3) Give your electrics decent range. BMW and Mercedes have figured that out.
(4) License that inductive charging pad from Porsche and add a self-driving trick. After driving in to the garage, let it back up, turn itself around, and back into the garage over the charging pad.
Do all that, and every trophy wife in the country will want one.
My favorite way to turn around my old Audi A3 in the snow was pulling the hand brake, but I’m guessing that is no longer available in anything now, and replaced by an electronic button. Maybe they should focus on upscale simplicity.
The title is misleading. It should read: “Tesla owners turn to Toyota. ” It fits their expectations for perceived quality and brand recognition. The latter is why you don’t see them moving to Chevrolet. That would be too big a status stepdown for them.
Speaking of Chevrolet. It disproves your proclamation of decade of the hybrid. Hybrids are selling in high numbers because, for the most part,that is what the companies are offering. How many Toyotas offer a nonhybrid engine? Same question for Honda, Hyundai, and Kia? Chevy sells more diverse cars because they offer the choice.
TBQ: Audi. Bring in good designs and killer product placement. It worked before and can work again.
Companies are offering hybrids because it has what people crave. It’s got electrolytes! I actually considered a GM vehicle until I realized they had no hybrids.
I like my cars non hybrid.
better picture is how many Camry’s are available without hybrid drivetrains?
About the same ratio on the lots as there are non white, black, and Grey scale choices.
are you sure? Last I checked the standard Camry drivetrain was Hybrid. In fact, I believe I saw that A hybrid 4 cylinder is the only drivetrain currently available. and I think at least among car buyers, that is still likely the higher seller these days.
I think we misunderstood each other.
What I mean to say is that dealers are filling the lots with hybrids, just like Grey scale colors. 99% of the buyers just pick something off the lot instead of ordering one so the numbers are skewed.
We are actually pointing out the same thing.
AHH, yeah, I misunderstood. thought you were saying the ice was in the mix like grey and Hybrid was like white. My bad
No problem.
Townes Van Zandt’s cover of “Dead Flowers” is the best.
“Tesla is no longer a luxury brand, unless you consider being mocked by children in your Cybertruck a luxury.”
I did a double take at the author name after reading that since Matt tries so hard to be Switzerland in all situations. Sick burn.
Lol, I ended up changing it. Maybe too sick!
To be fair, kids DO mock it. At my child’s bus stop, they’ve named it the “potato car”.
These are all kids under 10 years old.
Rolling dumpster jokes, here.
I like Christine Ricci’s Take too. Christina Ricci on Tesla Cybertrucks: “We should all practice loudly pointing and laughing as they drive by.”
My kids have taken to calling it the Cyberturd, since it looks about the shape you’d expect a robot dog to leave on your lawn.
Thank you for preserving this for future generations! I read the article after it was changed and it would have been a shame to miss this bit of pure gold. 🙂
I’ll pass it on to my boss when he questions why I refresh the Autopian 20 times every morning before doing any work.
TBQ: Hopefully VW as a whole will have a “come to jesus” moment and decide to make solid interiors again. The MK8 GTI I got as a rental recently felt just as crappy as every MK4/New Beetle my friends in high school had, minus the crayon/color pencil smell.
I like our 04 beetle interior ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Audi had hybrids? They must have sold dozens…
Audi has always been largely pointless to me. They have rarely been on par with Mercedes and BMW, historically more Volvo and Saab. The AWD schtick carried them for a long time, but now everybody does that – so why bother with an expensive VW with delusions of grandeur and even more questionable engineering and quality control?
I guess they could go back to being clean-lined handsome cars with nicer interiors than the price would have you expect. Or something. I honestly have never really cared about them at all.
Interesting about Teslas and trade-ins. As I have said here before, at one point there were 8 Teslas in my relatively immediate circle of friends and family. Today there are a big fat ZERO. But 7/8ths of those folks still drive EVs. One went for a PHEV Volvo, because he is the typical “space cadet genius” type who can do calculus in his head but can’t remember to plug in his car every night. Having a gas station on every street corner means not getting stranded places, including his house.
And as I have been saying around here for years now, the best use of 300 miles of battery is putting 30 miles of battery into 10 cars. Shame nobody makes a PHEV that isn’t stupid. For me, Volvo came close, but no cigar. If I wanted a Polestar Edition I would date a stripper.
The only thing I might disagree on is I don’t think you’re giving Audi enough credit for their design work, especially their interiors. Arguably their interiors are the benchmark for the last 25+ years and while their exterior styling has varied more and sometimes become a little too safe, they’ve also generally avoided the outright ugly and garish designs that Mercedes and especially BMW have dabbled with in recent years.
I’ll also add that while I hate touchscreen controls as much as the next Autopian, in my limited experience with these systems Audis probably have some of the best touchscreen UX I’ve come across, but buyers have to get in the door first to try one. But as you point out with AWD no longer being a unique selling point not sure if being the quietly stylish one is enough of a selling point, especially as the current cultural tides seem to be shifting back towards louder and more garish. And of course Volvo has been offering a compelling alternative if cars with a sense of design are your jam so that doesn’t leave Audi with much room.
I’ve had MANY A4s, Q5s, Q3s, and A3s and even a couple A6s as rentals occasionally for the past 20 years, they have never impressed me much. The interiors are “nice” but not wildly nicer than BMW or Mercedes (and the cheap ones aren’t nicer than Mazda), and I find their general ergonomics absolutely hateful, touchscreen or not (let’s put the volume control for the stereo where the passenger’s elbow can easily reach it). And the newer they get, the more hateful they get.
Certainly not bad cars, but not my thing at all. I grok BMW, and tolerate Mercedes reasonably well, at least until they went full-touch.
What does Audi have to do to turn it around?
Go back to what made Audi’s good. Quality interiors with actual ergonomic physical controls, understated clean exterior designs. Find away to not be German and lighten the hybrids. Make a new Sport Quattro.
I test drove a PHEV Audi Q5 and an SQ5 with my brother last year and honestly was pretty impressed with the hybrid. Nearly as fast in a straight line (when the battery had a decent charge) and while not as overtly sporty was still far from being a boat. Don’t get me wrong the SQ5 probably would’ve been my choice but my brother is the sort of average joe/jane car person who mostly equates “fun car” with straightline speed and with the lease deals they had as well as the wildly better MPG he wound up getting the plug-in.
TBQ: Audi has “The Buick Problem” Volkswagen is below them as the mass market brand, Porsche is above them as the luxury/high-performance brand so what’s an Audi?
I think Audi would do well to become “luxury Subaru”. The customer who goes glamping, wants to visit national parks but also stay in the nearest resort or luxury cabin.
It’s a niche that Land Rover somewhat has but could easily be secured by another brand
If Winterkorn was still CEO, maybe they would have tried to buy JLR.
Audi, imho, worked when it was heavily advertised as a “luxury” brand driven by people looking for an image. The “Tony Stark” image, so to say. But that’s long lost to Elon and an era of hyper-performing EVs.
I’ve mentioned before but neighborhoods near me that used to have quite a few Audi Q5/7/whatever are now, for the most part, Toyotas.
Not doubting you but I admit to finding this surprising. I’ve had a few family members who own/owned Audis and I don’t think any of them cross-shopped them with Toyotas at any point, though my brother did look at Mazda and VW.
I’ve a neighbour that’s floated between MB, BMW, and Caddy.
He’d never lower himself to drive a “lesser” brand.
But his wife and kid both currently have a Mazda, and refuse to drive his cars.
I mean they sort of tried this with the Allroad sub-model, but overall it seems like a big jump from their past positioning as being sort of cooly stylish. Their rally heritage is pretty far in the rear view at this point. IDK maybe I’m being too literal and just picturing an Outback-ified Audi 🙁
Also, while they are EV only you’ve basically described Rivian as I’m thinking about it more lol
Yeah, Rivian is accomplishing this well. People like to be perceived as outdoorsy and “of the Earth”
If they did an offroad focused Q3 and Q5, it would sell like crazy here in the states, especially as there’s no BMW, Mercedes, or Porsche equivalent.
Let them redo the Buzz into that
Denver has a deserved reputation of its residents being/appearing more outdoorsy-focused, and man are Rivians popular.