√Audi A8 axed in Australia, S8 to live on
The Audi A8 limousine has been deleted from the line-up 12 months after an updated model arrived. However the high-performance S8 edition remains.
The Audi A8 flagship limousine has been dropped in Australia after a run of nearly 30 years amid some of its lowest sales results in two decades.
Audi’s flagship, non-performance passenger vehicle – previously sold in 50 TDI V6 diesel form, with standard or long-wheelbase bodies – has been dropped from the price lists for Model Year 2024 production in recent months.
The high-performance Audi S8 – with a twin-turbo petrol V8 in the standard-wheelbase body – will remain. Drive has contacted Audi Australia to confirm the sales split between the A8 and S8.
It is expected to mark the end of the road for the traditional petrol or diesel A8 nameplate in Australia, as the next model is expected to go electric when it arrives after the middle of the decade – and change its name to A9.
It increases the price of entry into the A8 range by nearly 40 per cent, from $201,375 plus on-road costs for an A8 50 TDI in 2023, to $279,200 plus on-roads for an S8 in Model Year 2024.
The Audi A8 has not been excepted from the decline in sales of flagship luxury limousines – which have more than halved in 15 years – as high-end buyers move away from sedans and towards in-vogue SUVs.
Audi Australia has reported just 11 A8s as sold over the first nine months of this year, and 21 last year – a fraction of the 125 deliveries reported in its best full year, 2011.
Excluding 2020 – when just 13 examples were sold, at the height of the global pandemic – the 2022 result is the lowest full-year total since 2002, when production of the first-generation A8 was winding down ahead of the second-generation model due in 2003.
Sales have been hit by a changeover to an updated model in the second half of last year – which slowed deliveries to a crawl in early 2022 – as well as semiconductor shortages also affecting other Audi models, and almost all car manufacturers.
Last year 530 sales were reported in the flagship luxury limousine category – officially known as ‘upper large passenger cars over $100,000’ – down from 788 in 2011, and 1144 in 2007.
Meanwhile over the same period flagship luxury SUV sales (upper large above $100,000) have moved from 905 in 2007, dipping to 758 in 2011, before rising to 3325 last year.
Since the start of the millennium, 1320 Audi A8s and S8s have been reported as sold in Australia – compared to 4756 BMW 7 Series sedans, 1401 Jaguar XJs (not sold since 2020), 1926 Lexus LS four-doors, and 6983 Mercedes-Benz S-Class vehicles.
The Audi A8 line-up has been slimmed as sales have slowed. The 55 TFSI petrol V6 was axed in 2020 – after the current-generation model arrived in 2018 – while in 2011 there were six A8 model grades, across V6 turbo-diesel, V8 turbo-diesel and V8 petrol engines.
The post Audi A8 axed in Australia, S8 to live on appeared first on Drive.
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