Audi North America CEO fired over negative Phaeton remark
 

Haha this is great. A couple days ago a little blurb popped up on AutoWeek about how the guy said the Phaeton wasn't a good idea:

The head of Audi of America Inc. isn't surprised that Volkswagen's Phaeton sedan hasn't sold well in the United States.

"It could be the best car, but I would still not buy it because it has the VW logo and because I have to go to a VW dealership where the salesmen are used to selling Jettas and Golfs," Axel Mees said at a press event here last week.

Mees, 53, is no stranger to the luxury market. Before joining Audi on March 1, he spent 20 years with BMW AG.

"Volkswagen underestimated the weakness of their brand in the luxury segment," he said, adding that former Volkswagen AG CEO Ferdinand Piech "was an engineer and he wanted to prove that he can build great cars, and he didn't look at the marketing aspect, the brand aspect."

Through October, U.S. dealerships sold only 1,433 Phaetons. VW's original goal: 5,000 cars annually.

Now today on The Car Connection, he's been fired!

Axel Mees, the brand chief for Audi of America, has been fired for critical remarks made concerning former VW chairman Ferdinand Piech and the Phaeton sedan. Mees had been named head of the Audi brand in America only on March 1. Audi said in a brief release that Mees had left the company and that the current management would lead the brand until a replacement was named.

Oh well, VW sucks anyway.

Classic corporate politics. Tow the line or we'll slit your throat. :rolleyes:

I side with Mees. There was no legitimate buisness case for the Phaeton, never mind the new factory built strictly for it's manufacture.

IMHO, they should have pushed a Miata competitor to market...not an A8 with weak styling and the wrong badge.

Paheton is one of the dumbest economic moves for VW.

I think it was Dr. Peich's pet project before he left. After all, he was a ****ing tyrant.

There is honestly no economic sense behind the production of that car. Ive seen 2 within the last year, one of them was at the Autoshow :rolleyes:

that is just ridiculous. everybody knew the phaeton was not going to sell because of the VW logo in front. firing audi's na ceo won't get them sales

Speak truth...get fired. I guess Audi of America would preffer he lied???

or just keep his mouth shut.

if all cars had to have a legitimate business case then all cars would look/feel/drive similar.

sometimes a car maker has to go out on a limb and do what they must. MCoupe didn't have a business case at all yet BMW execs decided it was a car they must build.

This was also the case with the E30 wagon (never made it into US) which led to the E34/E39 and soon E60 wagon.

I see Phaeton as the first stone in a long road.

tells you how completely dumbfounded vw corporate is...when the concept came out all the big press talked about how this should be an audi...when it went to prototype stage same public outcry of why a lowly "vw" badge on a $60k+ luxury sedan...now after it sits on lots next to outdated jettas and new beetles vw corporate can't even see the stupidity of their ways and fire one of the those with some common sense

look at vw sales for this year...only the tourag is selling well (however anything called and SUV will sell even a yugo) as vw's entire fleet is outdated and overpriced...vw is a perennial bottom dwellar in JD power quality ratings but people still have the impression of german cars must be well built and reliable...vw's brand new golf (it's bread and butter car) is not selling as well as its older model and they have resorted to incentives in europe to move them off the lot as they have lost focus of its customer

just priced out a loaded up jetta gli with auto at $27.7k...!!! that is a nissan 350z, acura tsx, or audi A4 (which is cheaper!) for the same price better build and higher performance

if anyone should get the boot it has to be Ferdinand Piech who admitted he pushed this failure without any care if people wanted it

I think it will always be too soon for VW to get into the true luxury market.

Screw the Phaeton, let's see some engineering devoted to updating the Passat, Jetta and Golf on a quicker model cycle. The Passat is the same car that came out in '98 aside from a mild facelift, and the Jetta and Golf have been out since '99 in the exact same form as right now.

What I don't understand is why VW felt the need to push further upmarket at all. They have Audi to do that. BMW and Mercedes until recently have only encroached on the very top of VW's lineup, but it's a whole lot easier for a luxury brand to extend to a cheaper segment than for a mainstream brand to break into a luxury market.

Piech had some retarded idea of Audi competing against BMW (sporty luxury) and VW competing against Mercedes (luxury luxury). The problem is that while BMW is more sporty and Mercedes is more stodgy, they pretty much compete for the exact same customers. Audi is the sort of stylish middle ground between the two.

Let the Phaeton die and convert its overly spiffy factory over to Audi use, and work on making VW a good mainstream brand. There's nothing wrong with VW competing with the Hondas and Toyotas (or Peugeots, Citroens, Opels and Fiats) of the world and letting Audi worry about going upmarket.

You guys pretty much covered the entire brand management, corporate politics, and product development aspects of the story.

I'll cover the humor factor. Achtung baby!!! I didn't carry out this to its logical conclusion when I read it on AutoWeak but now that I think about it, you'd expect him to be canned.

Maybe he'll find his way back to BMW eventually?

"Phaeton as the first stone in a long road"

............................... :lmfao: Road to WHERE exactly?!!

Yeah, so what are the wackos @ Vortex saying about THIS one! :chuckles: