Audi will hit the brakes on its rollout of electric car models as consumer demand plummets in the face of high prices compared to petrol models. The Telegraph has the story.
Gernot Döllner, the boss of the Volkswagen-owned brand, said that he wants to avoid flooding dealerships and factories with the vehicles as sales slow.
“The advantage of EVs (electric vehicles) is becoming visible to consumers step by step,” Mr Döllner told Bloomberg News.
Official forecasts for electric car take-up in the U.K. were slashed by almost half last month. Sales of new battery-powered cars were expected to grow steadily until they accounted for 67% of the market by 2027, under a prediction issued in March.
But that figure has now been revised down to just 38% by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which said the take-up of EVs has been slowing.
Mr. Döllner, who was an executive at upmarket stablemate Porsche, was hired in the summer to reinvigorate the mid-market brand, on which Volkswagen relies for a large chunk of its profits.
Audi, whose electric models include the £69,480 Q8 e-tron, faces cheaper competition from China, which is also a key market for Volkswagen’s brands.
While electric cars are cheaper to run, their initial price remains stubbornly higher than petrol and diesel models.
It comes as electric car sales fell by the most on record last month following Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s climbdown on banning petrol models.
Sales of EVs plummeted by 17% from November last year, according to the statistics published by industry group the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
The drop beat a 9.7% fall in April 2020, when showrooms closed due to lockdown restrictions and a 7.9% decline in the early days of EV sales in March 2008.
The Government pushed back a petrol car sales ban from 2030 to 2035 in a move which carmakers warned could knock consumer confidence in EVs.
Much of the 17% EV sales drop from last year was due to a glut of deliveries in 2022 following months of supply problems.
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