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Audi CEO says brand's EVs are almost as profitable as its other cars

After, oh, a hundred years or so of building vehicles primarily powered by internal combustion engines, automakers around the world have been and still are pumping billions of dollars into the development of electric vehicle technology. Everything from platforms and batteries to motors and the software to control it all requires untold hours of development, and that takes time and money. Fortunately, it's not going to take long for that massive investment to start paying off, at least according to Audi CEO Markus Duesmann, who told Reuters in an interview that "The point where we earn as much money with electric cars as with combustion engine cars is now, or ... next year, 2023. They are very even now, the prices." As a brand, Audi contributed more than a quarter of overall profit for the massive Volkswagen Group, which has such powerhouse brands as Volkswagen and Porsche among others. Under the Audi umbrella are Lamborghini, Bentley and Ducati, and it seems those high-end branches aren't going anywhere, at least for now. "These brands ... are very valuable very profitable brands, where we can even expand the synergy level in the future," Duesmann said in the interview. "There are no plans whatsoever to get rid of them." Despite the overall profitability of the brand, the ongoing global chip crisis is causing headaches. "We had a very strong first half in 2021. We do expect a much weaker second half," said Duesmann, who added, "We really have trouble." In fact, so serious is the trouble that the brand is forced into "a day-to-day troubleshooting process" to limit the chip-shortage damage. The good news for the automaker is that Audi has been able to boost its profit margin from 8% prior to the pandemic in 2019 to 10.7% in the first half of 2021. The bad news is that various chip shortages aren't expected to get a whole lot better over the rest of the year. Related video:

2023 New York Auto Show Live Updates: Hyundai's surprise, Nissan's super stand, '24 Wrangler

The 2023 New York International Auto Show shifts into high gear Wednesday, April 5, and our reporters are already in the city, with events unfolding even as we speak. We'll being seeing cars in person, interviewing automaker insiders and snapping photos of vehicles and all the other oddities that pop up at an event like this and we'll be giving you live updates and color from the show floor along the way.  Ram, Hyundai, Subaru, Kia, VW and Jeep are all expected to show something new this week, and other automakers are known to be hosting off-site events that may produce news — expected or otherwise. Genesis has already revealed its GV80 Coupe, for example, along with the fact that it has been confirmed as a production model. And we're just getting started.  Read on below for our observations from the show floor and points beyond: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.     Green New York Auto Show Genesis Hyundai Jeep Kia RAM Subaru Volkswagen Concept Cars Electric Future Vehicles

The mood at this year’s Paris Motor Show: Quiet

The Paris Motor Show, held every other year in the early fall, typically kicks off the annual cavalcade of automotive conclaves, one that traverses the globe between autumn and spring, introducing projective, conceptual and production-ready vehicle models to the international automotive press, automotive aficionados and a public hungry for news of our increasingly futuristic mobility enterprise. But this year, at the press preview days for the show, the grounds of the Porte de Versailles convention center felt a bit more sparsely populated than usual. This was not simply a subjective sensation, or one influenced by the center's atypically dispersed assemblage of seven discrete buildings, which tends to spread out the cars and the crowds. There were not only fewer new vehicles being premiered in Paris this year, there were fewer manufacturers there to display them. Major mainstream European OEM stalwarts such as Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Nissan and Volkswagen chose to sit out Paris this year, as did boutique manufacturers like Bentley, Aston Martin and Lamborghini. This is not simply based in some antipathy on the part of the German, British and Italian manufacturers toward the French market — though for a variety of historical and societal reasons that market may be more dominated by vehicles produced domestically than others. Rather, it is part of a larger trend in the industry. Last year, Mercedes-Benz announced that it would not be participating in the flagship North American International Auto Show in 2019 — and that it might not return. Other brands including Jaguar/Land Rover, Audi, Porsche, Mazda and nearly every exotic carmaker have also departed the Detroit show. Some of these brands will still appear in the city in which the show is taking place, and host an event offsite, to capitalize on the presence of a large number of reporters in attendance. And even brands that do have a presence at the show have shifted their vehicle introductions to the days before the official press opening in an attempt to stand out from the crowd. In many ways, this makes sense. With an expanding number of automakers, with diversification and niche-ification of models and with wholesale shifts that necessitate the introduction of EV or autonomous sub-brands, there is a growing sense that, with everyone shouting at the same time, no one can be heard.