BigBoy11

And no one is confusing the A8 for an A4! Or so the critics say.

Ravill

And even in the Bay Area where BMW's and Mercedes are the corolla's and the civics, A8's, A8L's and S8 are very, very rare.

As a matter of fact, I see more of my Lamborghini's around than my S8.

derfA8L

Fred, who's Fred?!!! 👀.

LOL 😎

Mike911A8

Central Pa to NYC and return yesterday; saw one early D3. But a marvelous ride in my A8.

doctorharrison

OK, the road trip ended last evening. Ft. Myers to Boston in a leisurely fashion [five days, all daytime driving], 1575 miles altogether including a two day diversion into and around Savannah, and a single loop into Raleigh for an overnight. Only A8 on the entire trip was at mile 1350ish in the western Philadelphia suburbs.

Geez, do I hate the Northeast Corridor, especially going thru the Oranges in north Jersey. Always have, always will...

DavidA

D3s imported to US: ~5500 per year (high mark)
D4s imported to US: ~15-20000 per year so far
)-: not as rare as D3s

high profits from D4 is the reason

derfA8L

Where are you getting those figures from for the D4? Nowhere near those levels in the U.S.:

AOA A8 (D4) Unit Sales Per Year:
2011: 5,700
2012: 6,002
2013: 6,300
2014: 5,904

No way Audi AG allocated anything close to 15,000 D4s annually to AoA. Still a fairly "rare" vehicle in the States.

And I'm fairly certain that the A8 profit to Audi is not as high as its MSRP suggests. Car manufacturers initially throw all their innovations and advanced technology into their flagship lines, which dictates that all that R&D expense dilutes the profitability of these higher priced vehicles---One could argue that they make no real profit on them at all in the first several years of a current generation's lifecycle.