Market didn’t care. They simply don’t care about weight in a large sedan. Why would they?

Which reminds me the LS 430 was like 3900lbs i think

 

typo on the original post, I agree that fuel economy is not important on this class of car.

 

We have entered the chat, some with championships

 

From a technical standpoint it is a big deal, over 45k nm/* stiffness, the D4 was so light for the class it was able to exceed 30 mpg in the V8 cars and had unusually high performance due to being sub 4000lb in SWB trim.

No corrosion risk, very high crash performance and predictability on top of repairability over steel etc

Issue is that most people aren't buying a car for technical reasons...

 

3975 on a scale. The D4 4.2 is 3968 on the same scale, D3 was heavier as is the D5 but the D5 was a regression in hard tech in a few ways. They cheapened the chassis a good bit

 

Even though the sedans are over 6,000lbs GVWR they still don't technically qualify for 179. It has to be a multipurpose vehicle, a sedan runs a significant risk if audited

In any event thats not much of a needle mover anymore on a vehicle like this, on a luxury vehicle the one year deduction is limited to ~$20k, lease payments on a car of this level are that much or more a year. Only benefit is if you need a deduction right at the end of the year you can get that $20k

 

looks like it's done. google:

The 2026 Audi A8 is experiencing a soft discontinuation in the USA due to slumping sales, with reports indicating orders are closing for the current "D5" generation flagship sedan. New 2025/2026 models are listed from approximately
$88,900 to over $104,000.
Sales in 2025 dropped to roughly 1,406 units, continuing a decline from 1,628 in 2024.

 

Platform lives on at least in the Pana and BFS. Most A8 owners I know moved to one of those two or a "flagship" SUV of some sort.

 

So it's been confirmed to be "on hiatus" until the end of the decade, until then the Q9 will take its place.

https://www.motor1.com/news/790277/a...r-late-decade/

I doubt it'll return and this is just PR to save face.

 

I believe it will be returning, maybe not badged as an A8 but it will definitely be back.

It was under internal review if they should give it a 2nd facelift while the new model is in development, but looks like they just decided to discontinue it with the Q8 and bring it back while a new model gets in development.

You have to keep in mind this is the backwards Audi management, that decided to push the new Q7's development and launch till after the PPC/PPE compact-midsize models launched, but then those models got delayed even further by 2-3 years from their initial scheduled debut dates of late '21-22 to 23-25 and now the Q7 has had a 10 year run with the new model finally coming out later this year.

There's no surprise there the A8 has been stuck in development limbo, especially considering the fact that the A8 based on the Grandsphere concept was greenlit (and subsequently cancelled) in late 2021, but once CEO Dollner took over in 2023 and in 2024 he reverted Audi's switch to full EV thus canning the A8 e-Tron. It was also being reported that the Grandsphere project had very little development progress made due to CARIAD's software delays, these are the same delays that pushed the Q6/A5/Q5/A6/A6e launches back by 2 years.

So yeah. I think there will be a D6 Audi but it will take time.

 

Did they also discontinue the Q8?

 

So two three suvs with AUDI?

Dang they speed running their push to copy Toyota and the highlander and grand highlander dilemma.

The a8 wont be missed, and q9s gonna push units, I assume theyre going to build on the same factory as the q7, so that will be scaled down in production qty as well?

 

It's being discontinued yeah, production should end this year with the current body Q7 or a few months later. New Q7 and Full Size 3-row Q9 are coming this year.

 

Ehh not quite.

My personal theory is the Q7 will lose the 3rd row to be a true X5/GLE competitor.

Q9 is directly targeting X7 and GLS.

 

I heard it might come back but also the Q9 could just replace iT. MORE CROSSOVERS