Mrclopec

When a product that's is of one design spec is manufactured and marketed to an entire population, the amount of people that will take interest in it, buy it, and the sum of money acquired from said product, will always be less than a product that is offered in variations which will always appeal to a larger amount of people. Your logic falsely assumes that every person in the population desires every feature available when in reality there are people who will not desire a product specifically because it has a feature. Businesses spend vass amounts of money conducting research on focus groups attempting to attain the perfect balance between demand and cost. The true amount of margin in any one of VAG's vehicles is only known by VAG, but I can assure you it's big. Big enough to mean that the profitability ratio between manufacturing several options of one product is financially worth doing as opposed to only manufacturing one variant. Profit isn't just made through sales, it's made through cost cutting as well. Anyone who works for a company that is publicly traded probably just rolled their eyes at me for reminding them of that vexatious, but true, little fact.

The short answer to your question: Because, math.

DB22

Great response Mrclopec and thank you, I was hoping for a response from someone with the knowledge of marketing.
BTW - the answer to ALL of my questions is, money

In 2005 I bought an Acura RL. It was sold without any options at all, for that year all cars were the same - fully loaded. Within months of its release there were options and within a couple of years there were different versions. This bears out your theory but I liked the idea of no options so, I admit, I'm in the minority.

1st Time Audi

So other than the aesthetic, a flat bottom steering wheel is primarily for entry/exit of a vehicle?

While I do like the look, the feel and grip is a little thicker?

Right now I'm so brain dead I can't remember if there's ease of access in the A6 (and also because my car has been the shop for 2 weeks).

IknowHuhA6

+1
Yes great response and was impressed by the mention of focus groups. Prior to seeing Mrclopec's response I was going to respond with something along the lines of Product Differentiation for both external competitors as well as in-house model differentiation for consumer demand and price tiers. I liked Mrclopec's answer better.

By the way, so what does the * button do anyways?? My swapped wheel has it but I originally had heated steering wheel. When I press this it tells me voice commands are not activated. Should I be looking to activate a feature, and what's the difference between that button's voice commands and the Speech recognition button?

DB22

[QUOTE=IknowHuhA6;24745156


By the way, so what does the * button do anyways?? My swapped wheel has it but I originally had heated steering wheel. When I press this it tells me voice commands are not activated. Should I be looking to activate a feature, and what's the difference between that button's voice commands and the Speech recognition button?[/QUOTE]

The button gives you optional functionality depending on the menu in Car Settings. I have mine set to enable/disable navigation voice feedback but there are other choices too. If you cannot find that menu or a reference to it in the manual then you will need to research the software differences. I don't remember if VCDS allows this function to be enabled when you disable heated steering wheel option.

Tman007

If someone knows how to enable this in VCDS, please share. I've looked thru the VCDS threads and haven't seen anything on this. My * button on my retrofitted wheel toggles the voice guidance, but I don't see any option to change to a different function.

Tman007

I don't disagree in general, but did Audi really do research that concluded that flat-bottom wheel lovers don't need their hands warmed in the winter?

Mrclopec

I would say yes. The amount of people they deemed would want the feature (target group) did not outweigh the cost for development. Think about it...It is this very same reason that they do not offer sport seats with ventilation.

P.S. I would love to have both a heated flat bottomed steering wheel as well as ventilated sport seats.

rassi

Just a heads-up that the vendor that the OP and I got the steering wheel from, is now selling one again: Audi A6 S6 A7 S7 S-line Flat Bottom Steering Wheel | eBay

1st Time Audi

If it was not the holiday season, I would be biting on this