Audi's goal: More SUVs and wagons for U.S.

SEATTLE -- Audi of America's director of product planning, Barry Hoch, has a slew of new vehicles coming to market over the next 18 months, but he contends the German luxury brand still has lucrative "white space" to push into to further grow its sales in the United States.

"For us, obviously, one request from this side of the ocean is to have an even bigger SUV," such as a Mercedes GLS competitor, said Hoch.

"That's pure white space that's out there for us," Hoch said. "From an American perspective, that's one we are pushing to get, and I think we're getting some traction."

Hoch and Audi are in the midst of an aggressive product introduction cycle that started last year and will see almost all of the brand's lineup refreshed or redesigned by the end of 2018. That includes the launch this spring of the A5 and S5 Sportbacks, which were shown to journalists here last week, and ultimately will touch 14 models over an 18-month period. The lineup refresh comes as Audi basks in the glow of 77 consecutive months of record sales in the U.S. and has more than doubled its U.S. sales since 2010, when it first topped 100,000 vehicles annually.

"By the end of next year, we'll have the youngest lineup among our main competitors," Hoch said. "When you look at the competition, no one is resting, and no one is sleeping. But we've got to keep the pedal on the floor with the products coming as well. It's the only way we're going to keep our streak alive."

Audi has been able to carve out a small niche among luxury automakers with its five-door Sportback models. Hoch said the Sportbacks give sedan customers another alternative if they're not ready to follow the crowd into a crossover.

Sales of larger sedans were fed by customers moving from smaller-segment vehicles into larger vehicles, Hoch said. But customers increasingly are moving from sedans into SUVs, he said. "We're just not being fed into those [sedan] segments in the same way we were in the past," Hoch explained. "That's something that we're also working on as well. It's going to be a dogfight in those segments, which is why we need to bring in the heavy artillery."

Sportbacks and wagons, such as the A4 allroad, offer an alternative to SUVs, Hoch says. He'd like to see Audi introduce more wagons in the U.S. There is a small segment of customers who are "anti-SUV," he said.

"There is a small group of aficionados who could benefit from an additional wagon from Audi," Hoch said. "It's certainly something that we see over in Europe, and I want it."