Missing parts, the weakening economy and the slump in electric cars have led to a decline in sales for the Volkswagen subsidiary Audi in the past year.

As the Ingolstadt-based carmaker announced on Monday, at 1.67 million vehicles, almost twelve percent fewer were sold in 2024 than in the previous year. Audi boss Gernot Döllner said that global economic uncertainties and intensified competition had characterized the year. "Challenging economic conditions and an inability to plan funding structures are currently causing a certain reluctance to buy across the industry, especially when it comes to fully electric vehicles," added sales director Marco Schubert.

Audi delivered a total of 164,000 electric cars to customers, eight percent fewer than in the previous year. The Ingolstadt-based company launched the Q6 e-tron in 2024 after years of delay. The bestseller was the Q4 e-tron, which is built in Zwickau.

In regional terms, the situation was particularly worse in Germany, where a good fifth fewer cars were delivered. In the other European countries, the decline was significantly lower at just under six percent. In China, Audi recorded a drop of almost eleven percent, and in North America of 13 percent.

(Report by Christina Amann, edited by Ralf Banser. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at Berlin.Newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and economics) or Frankfurt.Newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets)