1997 Audi A4 1.8t on 2040-cars

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Trump reportedly says he wants to wipe German cars off the U.S. map

BERLIN/FRANKFURT — A report that U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pursue German carmakers until there are no Mercedes-Benz rolling down New York's Fifth Avenue dented shares in the luxury car manufacturers on Thursday. An excerpt from German magazine Wirtschaftswoche's article, which cited several unnamed European and U.S. diplomats but did not include any direct quotes, could not be independently verified, while a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Berlin referred questions to Washington. The news and current affairs magazine said Trump had told French President Emmanuel Macron in April that he aimed to push German carmakers out of the United States altogether. Macron's administration in Paris declined to comment on the report. The Trump administration last week opened a so-called Section 232 trade investigation into vehicle imports, which could result in a 25 percent tariff on cars on the same "national security" grounds Washington used to impose metals duties in March. This could destroy exports by German carmakers, which control 90 percent of the U.S. premium market and are the biggest European Union exporters of cars to the United States. BMW owns Rolls-Royce, while Daimler has Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen controls Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche and Audi. Daimler, BMW and Audi declined comment. Porsche was not immediately available for comment. BMW shares were trading 0.5 percent lower at 0939 GMT, while Daimler and VW's shares were down 1 percent and 1.6 percent respectively, underperforming Germany's blue-chip DAX. Trump has railed against German carmakers before. And in early 2017, in an interview with German newspaper Bild, he said he would impose 35 percent tariffs on imported cars. At the time, the president called Germany a great car producer but said that the business relationship with the United States was an unfair one-way street. Germany's auto industry association VDA says its members exported 657,000 vehicles to North America last year, with total exports of vehicle components, cars, engines, as well as second-hand vehicles totaling 31.2 billion euros in 2016. Imports from the United States to Germany amounted to 7.4 billion euros, meaning a trade deficit of 23.8 billion euros the VDA's latest available figures show. However, German brands also have huge factories in the United States, where they built 804,000 cars last year, VDA said, providing jobs for U.S. workers. Berlin has reacted angrily to the U.S.

2015 Audi A3 E-Tron [w/video]

Over the years, we've had a chance to test a lot of Audi E-Tron vehicles, from very early all-electric prototypes (back then we only got to sit in the passenger seat) to the A6 L E-Tron PHEV and the A1 E-Tron plug-in hybrid. All of them were concepts and promises, merely whispers of what was possible, even as the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt and two Tesla models were making waves in the marketplace.
As we learned last year in our Deep Dive of the E-Tron project, all of the concepts, prototypes and rumors have finally come to fruition in this A3 Sportback E-Tron. Previously, we were given a chance to drive a prototype, but it was only very briefly. Last week, we finally got to run a production-representative example through the hilly roads between Vienna, Austria and Munich, Germany. After spending a solid day with Audi's first marketable E-Tron vehicle, we can say that it's a most amazing bit of engineering, in particular for the way that Audi has done so much to hide the fact that this is an electrified vehicle. Not entirely, of course, but the idea was to make the A3 Sportback E-Tron a no-compromise PHEV. And that means it drives and feels, in many ways, like the standard A3 Sportback despite over 700 extra pounds. Oh, and there's a charge port hidden behind the four rings in the grille.

Automakers need to stop stalking celebrities

Since the invention of the automobile, cars and stars have gone together like paparazzi and the Kardashians. During this season of starlet-adorned award ceremonies, from the Golden Globes through to the Oscars, you will find a lot of car companies all vying to loan out their vehicles to any celebrity with a recognizable face who happens to be heading to a red-carpet award ceremony. There is, however, none so coordinated, consistent and aggressively playing the Fame Game as our friends at Audi. Since the invention of the automobile, cars and stars have gone together like paparazzi and the Kardashians, so by association getting a celeb behind the wheel of your car brand gives it an instant image boost that must make the car more attractive to buyers. Celebrity tales equals dealership sales. That's the logic, anyway. But surely the millions of dollars spent giving free cars to rich stars is a waste of precious and increasingly smaller marketing budgets. It's time to make the car the star, not the other way around. Lets be clear, we are not talking about the very obvious dropping of famous faces into big budget ads. That has its place in the marketing toolbox, but in a very media savvy world it's clear most of us get that play-for-pay concept. Today, the use of just a famous name in an ad yields very little influence on whether you or I will buy that car. No, this awards-ceremony loaner deal is a subtler, but higher risk, idea that if you see a "star" with "their" car in "real life" then surely that adds to the car's appeal. We, the audience, are expected to start salivating like Pavlovian puppies in our desire to have same car in our own, less red-carpeted driveway. Geoff Day has been called the "Pied Piper" of the auto industry, leading auto journalists on wild rides around the globe in his position as former director of communications for Mercedes-Benz USA. Before that, he worked at DaimlerChrysler UK on its PR efforts, and rubbed elbows with the Queen of England in his role at the Buckingham Palace Press Office. His phone is filled with the numbers of the great, the good and the bad. His head is filled with dirty little secrets hiding in many corners of the auto industry. There is no doubt that the publicity that comes with a well placed story, picture or feature can help raise awareness of a product – Oprah proved that with her "Favorite things" – especially if you are launching a line of wrinkle cream or juice bars.