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Audi halts petrol A4 and A5 sales in Europe
July 14, 2017
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Embattled German car-maker forced to stop selling volume-selling models including S4 and S5
Audi has been slapped with a Europe-wide stop-sale order on all of its petrol-powered A4 and
A5 vehicles, including its high-profile S4 and S5 performance models.
The premium car maker denies it is in a crisis even though it could be forced to stop selling its volume-selling mid-size models for up to two months.
The move leaves Audi in the unenviable position of being unable to legally deliver a petrol-powered model to A4 and A5 buyers exactly when a buyer backlash against diesel engines seemingly gathers steam across Europe.
Software changes to both the 3.0-litre turbocharged V6 in the S4 and S5 pulled them both out of compliance because their fuel consumption went above the officially quoted figures.
Audi claims the software upgrades are intended to smooth out the power delivery of the 260kW/500Nm engines in their Automatic and Comfort modes, while making them more responsive in Dynamic mode.
It was the same basic story on the 2.0-litre TFSI motors in the A4 and A5 sedans, wagons, coupes and convertibles, although for different reasons.
The 2.0-litre TFSI engine’s data has changed because Audi added a mild hybrid system to lower real-world fuel economy. While Audi makes no specific claims for the mild-hybrid system yet, most car-makers figure on it giving a real-world consumption reduction of around 0.7L/100km.
The bewildering part about this mild-hybrid system, which uses a starter-generator in place of the starter motor, is that Audi admits it adds about 0.2L/100km in the European Union’s official New European Driving Cycle (NEDC).
“The 2.0-litre TFSI is a little bit different,” an Audi spokesman said. “The process of bureaucracy is the same one. It got a mild hybrid system and it has also changed the consumption by 0.2 and 0.3 litres per 100km, something like that.
“It’s worse consumption. You don’t have the mild hybrid functioning on the test cycle. You don’t have the effect by just the standard consumption. As a customer you will have the effect and the benefit. It’s worse in the lab but better on the road.”
While Audi cannot comment on what the new figures will be, the spokesman admitted it was still waiting for German government officials to approve the changes.
And because of the way the EU does these things, if the German government is yet to approve the new figures, that stop-sale order applies in all 27 European countries, excluding only Switzerland.
However, with the German government currently unenthusiastic about its car industry’s recent behavior and a looming summer holiday period, Audi admits the process may take between six and eight weeks.
“If you have a change like that you have to tell the traffic authority to certify the process, which needs sometimes four to six weeks. Sometimes it needs two months and we are just in the middle of that process,” an Audi spokesman briefed on the subject explained.
“In the moment you know about having the higher consumption, you need either to stop selling until you have published the new figures and you’re only allowed to sell them after the authorities publish it.
“We didn’t forget to certify it in time. When you test it in the process of getting it ready, and you see the consumption is higher, you have to change the catalogue and everything and tell the authorities.”
The only upside for Audi is that it insists it will recover almost all of its S4 and S5 sales in the long run.
“The volumes are nothing, at least for S4 and S5, because they are not that strong in Europe,” the Audi spokesman insisted.
“Customers are informed that the car is coming two months later, so somebody might change to a four-cylinder instead of an S4, but most people will wait.
“You can theoretically continue to sell the cars, but you have to explain to every single customer that their car is different from what they believed they had ordered, which can cause even more confusion.”
Audi had hoped this week’s launch of the A8 limousine, complete with speed-limited Level 3 autonomy, would help it turn the corner after an awful 18 months.
Since the Dieselgate scandal broke in September 2015, it has seen the entire emissions-cheating software program traced back to its development department, its 3.0-litre V6 TDIs caught cheating in the US and its chairman Rupert Stadler withstand severe pressure to leave the job.
Stadler hired back a Daimler-bound technical director only to sack him over Dieselgate, and was sued by a suspended diesel engineer for wrongful dismissal.
