During an otherwise peaceful family vacation driving along the California coast last August, Audi AG Chief Executive Officer Rupert Stadler was displeased by what he saw -- or more precisely, didn't see -- on the streets of America's most affluent neighborhoods.
"I simply see too few vehicles with the four rings when I am driving on the highways there," Stadler says three months later in his all-glass office overlooking Audi's sprawling headquarters in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt, referring to Audi's iconic logo. "We still have work to do."
That is a humbling realization for the brand that surpassed Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz in luxury sales in western Europe last year. Audi is also the luxury leader in China, where parent Volkswagen AG entered in 1985. Now, nearly two decades after its reputation in the US took a hit over concerns its cars were subject to sudden acceleration, Audi is starting to gain traction in America, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Nov. 22 issue.
Even though the automaker's US sales still trail those of BMW, Mercedes, and Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus, Audi will sell more than 100,000 vehicles in the world's largest market for luxury cars for the first time this year and the automaker aims to double that figure by 2018.
Stadler needs a North American bounce to meet his ambitious goal of leapfrogging his German rivals to become the world's No. 1 maker of luxury cars by 2015. VW also is counting on Audi to remain a profit driver: The division's third-quarter return on sales hit 11 percent, besting BMW's automotive operating margin of 8.1 percent and Mercedes' 9.5 percent.