Audi

For those of you who like a bit more sport and a bit less utility from their German crossover machine, Audi has just introduced the 2025 Q5 Sportback. And, yes – there is an SQ5 variant.

Volkswagen recently confirmed that it would shutter at least three factories in its home country of Germany as part of its aggressive cost-cutting measures. We’re now learning about the closure of another of VW’s facilities in Brussels, Belgium, where it builds Audi EVs.

Luxury imports from Germany have historically not been synonymous with affordability and there appears to be no danger of that changing. Audi has announced pricing for the RS6 Avant GT, with the model looking like it’ll become a bauble for the kind of people that probably already have something like it in the garage.

The model is effectively the super-premium version of the RS6, which is already a sported-up version of the A6/S6, and carries an MSRP of $198,900 before you’ve factored in destination fees or dealer markups.

Today I bring you a 1984 Audi 4000 quattro that has been modified to go racing.

The iconic Audi five-cylinder engine only powers one vehicle in the automaker’s lineup at the moment, and it’s getting a decent glow-up for the 2025 model year. The new RS 3 lands with updated styling, a refreshed interior, and new options, though its price is likely to climb with the changes.

In what certainly looks like just the latest walkback in EV ambitions, an outlet across the pond is reporting that Audi may be shoving its transition to an all-electric manufacturer by a few years.

Many of the latest automotive trends seem designed to hurt the feelings of enthusiasts and appease various government ordinances. A prime example of this is companies quieting down exhaust noises and piping simulated sounds into the cabin. This has gradually evolved into automakers hiding the exhaust ports altogether, sometimes replacing them with plastic veneers that do nothing while looking the part. But it hasn’t gone over well with drivers, encouraging some brands to walk the practice back — including Audi.

Audi has released a statement of intention to restructure its facility in Brussels over concerns that the electrified Q8 e-tron experienced “a segment-specific intensified drop in demand.” However, restructuring may not be the end result — as the brand stated that a cessation of operations at the site may take place if an alternative solution isn’t found.

Today we present you a manual-transmission wagon -- a 2004 Audi Avant 1.8T.

Audi has been throwing a lot of vehicles at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife for late. Last month saw the RS 3 having achieved the fastest lap among the stock compact class. Days later, the automaker made another announcement that the RS Q8 Performance had achieved the same for SUVs.

Today we bring you a 2014 Audi A6 that appears to be lightly modified.

We love wagons around here, and the recent trend continues with this 2010 Audi A3 wagon.

The Audi S3 has long been a pocket rocket of sorts, forming the entry level to the brand’s extensive performance catalog. It’s getting a mid-cycle refresh for 2025, which will bring more power and features from the RS3 to boost its already impressive performance.

Audi’s all-electric e-tron subbrand continues suffering from battery issues, with the company recently issuing a recall for the GT sedan and its zestier RS variant. The issue is that the high-voltage batteries equipped to the models might short circuit, posing a fire risk to owners and whatever they’ve parked their EV next to. The recall report stipulates that Porsche warned Audi of the possibility of “thermal events” after realizing that some Taycan models were suffering from battery defects.

European-market cars are a great way to see what some of America’s favorite luxury brands have in store for the New Continent, but the Euro updates don’t always make their way here. One we’re hoping skips North America is Audi’s new subscription scheme, recently introduced with the new A3 in Europe. We’ll see the new car in 2025, but let’s keep our fingers crossed this change stays out of North America.

Thousands of vehicles manufactured under the umbrella of Volkswagen Group are being held at U.S. ports for allegedly violating the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). Enacted in 2021, the law is supposed to prohibit the utilization of slave labor in Western China. While the impacted automakers include Porsche, Bentley and Audi, we’ve seen plenty of brands being accused of leveraging forced labor in the Xinjiang region of China, where the country is said to have forcibly concentrated the Uyghur ethnic minority.

While Audi had previously confirmed 2023 as the last year of the R8, production of the model has continued into 2024. The automaker will reportedly be keeping the mid-engine coupe around through March to satisfy demand.

Beyond being one of my absolute dream cars, the Audi RS 6 Avant is just a very impressive car. It’s getting even more impressive in 2025 with the super-limited RS 6 Avant GT, a unique special edition with a throwback livery and handcrafted details. The automaker hasn’t detailed North American pricing yet, but the car starts at $235,777 (219,355 Euro) on the Old Continent.

Today we bring another UCOTD with concise ad copy. This one is a 2002 Audi A6.

We haven't featured that many Audis here, especially a 1997 Audi A6 Quattro.

There is no shortage of machines jumping on the off-road bandwagon as of late. Rigs like the Porsche 911 Dakar and Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato get big grins and all the ink but jacked up machines like the Wilderness line at Subaru are pushing these builds well into the mainstream. Audi is dipping a toe into these muddy waters with the all-electric Q8 e-tron Edition Dakar.

Chinese smartphone giant Huawei has apparently broached the topic of software collaboration with a pair of German automotive companies. According to reports, Huawei wants to bust out of the situation in which it finds itself partnered on such projects solely with brands in China.

Audi is discontinuing the TT this year and will be offering a Final Edition built in limited quantities. Based on the Roadster, the model is focused on giving a visual nod to the original that debuted in 1998 so you’ll have something to talk about with friends. But the first thing they’re going to bring up is why the cloth top is gray rather than the original black.

As part of the VW family, Audi is going electric sooner rather than later, but it’s not entirely ready to give up on combustion. The automaker recently confirmed that the company’s RS performance vehicles would be split across gas and electrification and that the two would ride on different architectures.

I am back from two days of playing with new cars in suburban Chicagoland, and I bring you a German treat -- this 2015 Audi A3.

Large automakers save money by sharing platforms and engineering designs across individual brands, but the practice means that problems affecting one model tend to impact related vehicles. Porsche and Audi recently issued a recall that illustrates that point, as the vehicles share most of their underlying engineering and could have batteries with insufficient sealant.

Today's UCOTD is a 2007 Audi A3 S-Line 3.2 quattro with an automatic transmission. Hey there, a wagon!

Sixty-five grand doesn’t fetch you what it used to, it seems.

Yes, sure, prices inflate over time, we all know that. But even accounting for that fact, and even accounting for the fact that electric vehicles are commanding premium prices and likely will for the foreseeable future, I was nevertheless disappointed with the experience of being loaned a 2022 Audi 50 e-tron quattro* for a week.

Hands up if you’ve ever had a car repair stretch on longer than your liking. Chances are, most of us have been without our wheels for an unexpected spell – whether that was at the hands of a so-called professional garage or one’s own wrenching ineptitude is often up to our own personalities. This author has sadly fallen into the latter category more than once.

The idea of a compact, sporty entry-luxury crossover is appealing.

It’s a sort of a “have your cake and it too” proposition – you get the utility of a crossover, but it’s also fun to drive and at least a little bit upscale. Sure, it’s expensive, but perhaps not out of reach for the upwardly mobile young (or youngish) urban professional.

Reports have emerged in Germany that former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler is about to become the upper-echelon automotive executive convicted in the diesel emissions fiasco perpetrated by Volkswagen Group. A Munich court issued a preliminary assessment on Tuesday, stating that an accusation of fraud had been substantiated.

If you thought Audi’s naming scheme for electric vehicles was a little confusing, buckle up because things are about to get more complicated. The brand is preparing to rename its entire lineup to further differentiate between EVs and combustion models. While rumors about the company dumping e-tron badging for something different have circulated for weeks, CEO Markus Duesmann recently confirmed some of the details in Germany. In the future, all combustion-reliant Audi products will be issued odd numbers while electric models are to be given even ones.

Yes, we're featuring yet another wagon in this slot. We're automotive journalists, what can we say?

This one is a 2012 Audi A3 Premium Plus S-Line with the DSG automatic transmission.

Enthusiasts and auto journalists are a predictable lot. Show us a high-performance wagon, preferably in brown, and we drift off into a warm haze of sideways-skidding family-hauling daydreams. Europeans have long gotten the cream of the crop when it comes to hot wagons, but Americans have gotten a few over the years, including the current Audi RS6 Avant. A couple of days ago, Motortrend got everyone’s hopes up with a report that Audi would bring the smaller RS4 Avant to America, but the automaker wasted very little time in shutting the rumor down – hard. 

Audi began rolling out its exotic “Sphere” concepts in 2021. The Grandsphere Concept previewed an electric flagship sedan, and we’re now learning that it will likely arrive as an A8 successor in 2024. 

Hi there, folks. We're working on another initiative with our corporate parents/partners to promote our forums. In this case, it's all about Audi and F1.

Today's used car of the day is a sporty Audi sedan that asks $27,500. This 2007 Audi RS4 sedan has a manual transmission and is in Pennsylvania.

It’s really easy to love a sporty entry-luxury sedan that has all the right handling moves and doesn’t totally break the bank.

It’s a bit less easy to love a car with Audi badging that seems to be short of some luxury features, features that you no doubt could have – if you just spent a little more.

It’s also a bit less easy to love a luxury car when there are a bit too many interior reminders of the mainstream brand it shares its platform with.

That’s the 2022 Audi A3 Quattro sedan I drove in a nutshell.

The Audi RS6 Avant and RS7 enjoy legendary status in the United States. The cars are two of the brand’s hottest performers here, falling second only to the R8 supercar. However, there’s always room for improvement, and that’s exactly what the automaker is doing for 2024. Audi is working on a new Performance trim for both cars that pushes even more power from their twin-turbo V8 engines and brings other go-fast upgrades to the chassis.

You're not alone if you find Audi’s EV naming convention confusing. Understanding the differences between various e-tron, e-tron GT, and Sportback models is more complicated than it should be, and unfortunately, things are unlikely to get easier as new models roll out. Audi recently teased new Q8 e-tron and Q8 Sportback e-tron models that are essentially renamed versions of the standard e-tron. We don’t know the pricing or release date details yet, but the two EVs debut on November 9, so we don’t have long to wait. 

A wagon with a manual transmission? Only one owner? Under 130K miles? Only $11,000?

Pinch us, we're dreaming.

Ever since the late David E. spaketh his missive and/or advertorial on behalf of a sports sedan, a pair of German brands have been the symbols of having made it...or at least being on a clear path to making it. Audi, on the other hand, was the third wheel - occasionally gaining respectability, but too often finding itself fighting against the memory of a vengeful Sunday evening “news” program.

Lately, however, Audi has been cutting their own path, with a distinctive style unlike any other automaker. The four rings within a gaping black grille are being recognized and appreciated as genuine markers of a fine luxury automobile - and not, as once was the case, as simply a nicer Volkswagen.

It’s been nearly three years since The Grand Tour switched its format away from the elaborate traveling tent and to its all-special format. On Friday, Amazon released the fifth such special, and the first “post pandemic” episode (their term, not mine). In “A Scandi Flick,” the familiar trio heads across Scandinavia in three rally-inspired all-wheel drive sedans. It’s certainly not the show’s worst work, but it’s far from the best. You’ll need to suspend disbelief and leave your thinking skills in another room.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has listed its’ automotive recalls for June 2 through 9 and the list includes Audi, Chevrolet, Ford, GMC, and Honda vehicles for various types of recalls.

It’s a new week, and I’m back with another German car Rental Review for your enjoyment! Today’s rental is one of two American market entrants into the premium compact five-door liftback segment, and not a car one expects to find in an Enterprise lot. Presenting a 2020 Audi A5 Sportback, two years and 50,000 rental miles later.

Back when everyone still bought into the hype surrounding self-driving cars, automakers were releasing concept vehicles framed as a “lounge on wheels.” The theory was that once autonomous vehicles hit the mainstream, companies would begin dropping futuristic models with swanky interiors because drivers would no longer be responsible for piloting the car for the duration of its journey. However, the public eventually learned that autonomous driving technologies had failed to progress as promised and would likely come with a host of restrictions plenty of drivers wouldn’t be interested in once the wrinkles had been ironed out.

But there are a whole host of markets to be tapped, the public has a relatively short-term memory, and there’s always a chance that some major headway was made during the last few years of development. So we’ve seen a resurgence of mobility talk from the industry, especially as it relates to all-electric vehicles. Case in point is the Audi Urbansphere — an autonomous concept vehicle designed for “Chinese megacities” but allegedly perfect for a metropolitan area near you.

Audi and FAW Group, the state-owned partner it is effectively required to have in order to preferential treatment from the Communist Party of China, received some good news this week. Government officials have approved the duo for a new, jointly operated production facility in Changchun.

With Volkswagen Group having shifted its focus toward China in recent years, the market has become all-important for the German company. VW is currently the top-selling brand for the entire region, with its Audi subsidiary typically being the highest volume premium automaker from Europe. Building in China is good optics for brands hoping to remain popular there and has the added benefit of placing manufacturing complexes closer to relevant suppliers, especially if you’re swapping to electric vehicles.

Ken Block is a man of many talents, many of which have nothing to do with driving. But he’s still best known for showboating from behind the wheel in the highly entertaining and well-produced Gymkhana video series. Here, Kenneth and the Hoonigan team choose a visually engaging locale and creatively rips up the pavement in some of the coolest custom-built rally cars ever to grace the screen.

Due to Block’s partnership with Ford, the majority of those cars wore the Blue Oval. But he’s since entered into a new professional marriage with Audi where he’s supposed to help push the brand’s all-electric agenda. The unification has apparently yielded its first mechanical offspring, with the insane-looking Audi S1 e-tron Quattro Hoonitron having debuted on Wednesday. Predictably electric, the vehicle is heavily inspired by the Group B legend that shares the parts of the name that don’t utilize the word tron.

Today’s Buy/Drive/Burn trio are near-premium sedans from the midsize segment. This set was a suggestion from commenter CoastieLenn on our B/D/B entry from last week. The year is 2011 – does Acura, Audi, or Volvo get the Buy nod?

Audi recently announced a new, super luxurious version of its largest sedan, and it’ll wear some branding not seen in a very long time. Wake up Horch, it’s 2022.

Despite being the target of a German lawsuit accusing the manufacturer of not being green enough, Volkswagen Group is probably the legacy automaker touting the merits of electrification with the most enthusiasm. While undoubtedly influenced by the diesel emissions catastrophe that cheesed off every regulator in the Western world, its brand has actively been delivering EVs and praising alternative energy automobiles whenever possible.

There was more of that this week. Porsche has reportedly decided to make the 718 to be an all-electric model by 2025 and Audi recently announced that it’s employing rally icon and Hoonigan founder Ken Block (who broke with the Ford Motor Co. earlier this year) to develop EVs.

It often feels like the automotive industry has hit a creative wall where every concept vehicle has to be another electric vehicle offering next-generation connectivity and some self-driving claims that will later be tamped down. We’ve gotten used to being disappointed but there has been one brand that’s been furnishing concept vehicles that are at least interesting.

In 2018, Audi debuted the PB18 E-Tron Concept (AI:RACE) in an attempt to highlight what’s possible with a pure EV using the skateboard platform. Without a driveshaft hogging interior space, the automaker felt it could build a supercar with an interchangeable driving position that allowed the pilot to transition from a central F1-style cockpit to something that’s more suited to the daily commute. The company has since decided to build on that idea with the Skysphere Concept, which alters the roadster’s exterior based on whether it’s you or the car that’s doing the driving.

Press-car abuse is a part of the automotive journalism industry. So, too, is damage caused by normally diligent journalists who made a mistake/had some bad luck. I don’t intentionally abuse vehicles, but I’ve dented and dinged and broken a few things because sometimes shit happens.

What I have not done is use a press car to help flood victims. Nor have I been scolded for doing so, even though the car wasn’t apparently damaged.

Audi is discontinuing the A1, citing Europe’s regulatory landscape as the main cause. Eager to limit the amount of CO2 coming out of tailpipes, the European Union has placed strict limits on petroleum-powered passenger vehicles. For Audi, the price of manufacturing a subcompact automobile-dependent upon internal combustion is getting too high. Installing a smaller motor would negatively impact drivability while slotting in a hybrid powertrain means more R&D costs and jacking up the MSRP to a point where consumers might lose interest.

There’s just not much incentive to build small, efficient vehicles when the profit margins have been made razor thin and people aren’t buying them in great numbers. And this is a lesson that’s being learned by all automakers, not just those associated to Volkswagen Group.

Volkswagen Group has been prattling on about electrification for years and ultimately decided that Audi would be the tip of its progressive spear. The brand has cachet as both a luxury and performance division, while simultaneously possessing VW’s magical ability to produce vehicles that don’t become an eyesore after you’ve had them in the garage for a decade.

While transitioning toward EVs runs the risk of spoiling that, Audi is clearly the VW property best positioned to come after would-be Tesla customers and is not hesitant to issue reminders that it’s serious about being a global leader when it comes to battery-driven vehicles. On Tuesday, the Ingolstadt-based company announced plans to exclusively launch electrically driven automobiles from 2026 onward — adding that it doesn’t even plan on selling internal-combustion vehicles by 2033.

But these rules won’t apply to the Chinese market, which will be flush with internal-combustion vehicles produced within its borders years after the rest of the world has apparently lost the option to purchase them.

In Part I of the D2 Audi S8 story, we covered the foundations of the A8 as Audi attempted a do-over after the V8 Quattro. Today we’re all about S8.

Rare Rides has featured the predecessor of today’s sedan previously, in a very pearly 1990 V8 Quattro. After Audi spent a few years unsuccessfully trying to sell its first-ever attempt at a flagship full-size sedan, it took the lessons learned from the D1 and developed the D2 A8 and S8.

When I’m wandering junkyards and looking for interesting stuff, I don’t pay much attention to Audis of our current century. No, I want to photograph old Audis, preferably ones from the 1970s. I make exceptions for discarded members of the Audi S family, however, because these cars do such a great job of demonstrating the ruthlessly quick depreciation of German luxury machinery that didn’t get the maintenance it deserved. Here’s an ’07 S6 that didn’t even see 15 years of use, found in a Denver-area yard last week.

While Europe often appears as a safe haven for punchy subcompacts, the reality is that the continent’s biggest sellers happen to be reasonably sized automobiles equipped with a tepid engine option. The Volkswagen Golf, Toyota Corolla, and Škoda Octavia (especially if you happen to travel through any former satellite states of the Soviet Union) are absolutely everywhere. Europe also has a strong taste for many of the compact crossovers that are popular here in North America, giving subcompacts an increasingly small share of the overall market. And it’s projected to get smaller (globally) under the existing European regulations.

Pint-sized economy vehicles aren’t exactly profit leaders for automakers and their margins are only going to become slimmer. The EU is now reaching a point where building them won’t make sense, as tailpipe regulations will eventually force some amount of electrification. This will jack up their price to a point where the kind of people that might have been considering them will probably shop used. But don’t take our word for it; Audi CEO Markus Duesmann recently said this is probably what will kill the A1.

The first new ABT RS7-R Limited Edition version of the 2021 Audi RS 7 has been completed by GMP Performance in Mooresville, North Carolina, at their facility in Lake Norman.