
Audi, one of the fastest growing luxury car companies in India, says it’s well on its way to becoming a fully-electric brand in the next 10 years. The growth has been phenomenal. The brand has retailed 3,474 units in the January-June period, registering a growth of 97 per cent, compared with the same period last year, on the back of models like Audi Q3, Audi Q3 Sportback, Audi Q5, Audi A4 and Audi A6.
“The meaning of Audi is to listen, and we’ve been listening to the voice of our customers and reworking on the drawing board to make something which is already good even better. We’ve decided globally that Audi will be a fully-electric company barring one-odd market by 2033. At present we’ve just started with electric mobility, the cars that we’re selling today are all above Rs 1 crore so we’re representing a very limited segment today,” Balbir Singh Dhillon, Head, Audi India told Business Today. “I’m sure in the years to come we’ll have many more electric cars coming in like we have globally. Some of them will also find their way to India.”
With the latest launch of the Audi Q8 e-tron that has a range of up to 600 kms and a ground clearance of 176 mm, Dhillon expects everyone from start-up owners to first time buyers, and even their existing customer base to upgrade to an electric car. “So far we’ve seen that the customers have bought an EV as their second car but that will change with Audi Q8 e-tron. We’ll spread our portfolio as we move on. Eventually we want to reach that 100 per cent. That’s our strategy. It’s also about making easy for our customers to own these cars and that’s what we focus on,” he said.
He adds that every fourth car that Audi sells in India today is being sold to its existing customer. “That’s something that will give us growth in the years to come, the brand loyalty. Our pre-owned business is also something we’re working very hard on in the last 3-4 years,” he adds.
By 2020, it had only 7 pre-owned car showrooms. Today, it’s a 24. “We’ll add three more by the end of this year. We’re created this as a standalone vertical for our dealerships. This helps them become profitable and provides an ease of selling to our existing customers. First time luxury car buyer can use pre-owned cars and then eventually upgrade to another Audi car. That’s the idea behind it. We want to give the same experience to our pre-owned car customers as we give to our new customers,” he said.
Dhillon expects EV penetration in the luxury space to be close to 50 per cent by 2030. “By 2025, we should reach 15 per cent. Luxury segment will lead the change in electric mobility. The penetration of EVs in the luxury space will be more than the overall car market. We’ve taken a very strong decision to become a fully-electric car company. We already took a bold step on April 1, 2020 when we decided we were focusing on electric + petrol strategy rather than our diesel + petrol strategy. That was the time 80 per cent of the market was diesel,” he said.
We took a hit on volume for some time, he adds, but today the diesel share in the luxury space is already dropped below 40 per cent. “These are some strategic decisions that were made and you live with these decisions with conviction with a hope that this will also happen with electric mobility. Though the luxury segment is 1-1.5 per cent of the market, it’s still very small but it’ll be the best year for us,” he said.
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