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Former Audi chief designer Wolfgang Egger leaves Italdesign

The latest word from the international community of automotive designers has it that Wolfgang Egger is leaving Italdesign, but just where the accomplished designer will land next and who will take his place remain big question marks. Egger is a designer who has bounced back and forth between Italy and Germany over the course of his career. He was born in Germany but studied in Milan. He began his career at Alfa Romeo in 1989 and was named its chief designer by 1993 before being head-hunted by the Volkswagen Group in 1998 to head up the design department at Seat. A few years later he went returned to Italy to run the Lancia design department, and was subsequently renamed to the same post at Alfa Romeo. In 2007 he went back to his native Germany to head up the Audi design office, over which he assumed complete responsibility by 2012, but left Audi in 2013 to run Italdesign. For those unfamiliar, Italdesign is the studio founded by Giorgetto Giugiaro (pictured at left next to Egger) back in 1968 but which, along with many other Italian design houses, fell on hard times in recent years. The Volkswagen Group swooped in to rescue the troubled studio in 2010, turning it into something of an in-house advanced design department to provide an alternative perspective on the direction in which the group and its various brands could take their respective designs moving forward. With Egger now leaving its helm, Italdesign and its German parent company will need to find his replacement, and we're sure they'll announce one in due course. The bigger question on our minds, however, is where Egger himself will head next. Given the path his career has taken to date, we wouldn't be surprised to see him land elsewhere in the Volkswagen Group or find a new role in the expanding Fiat Chrysler Automobiles empire. Then again, Egger could find it time to open an entirely new chapter. Watch this space. News Source: Car Design NewsImage Credit: Newspress Design/Style Hirings/Firings/Layoffs Audi Volkswagen designer italdesign giugiaro wolfgang egger

Despite premium carmakers going downmarket, luxury auto sales stick at 10-11%

According to research conducted by global information company IHS Automotive, the leporine birthing of new models by luxury manufacturers over the past six years hasn't increased their market share in the US. Even as car sales reached 15.6 million units, IHS says what's happened instead is that luxury buyers are merely moving from one brand to another, moving from larger luxury vehicles into hot segments like compact luxury crossovers or leaving the market at the same rate as other buyers enter.
Whether broken out by makes or by segment, market share has rollercoastered inside a narrow band from 10.5 to 11.5 percent since "at least" 2008. Closer investigation reveals the shifting boundaries in the aspirational pond, with brands like Mercedes-Benz and Audi gaining territory as Lexus and Lincoln lost it, and Saab and Hummer were buried, dead, under it. One neat note is that Tesla has gone from a share of zip to .12 percent.
The subcompact and compact crossover segments show growth, with those little high-riders jumping from .3 percent to 1.16 percent of overall industry sales. Their rise, though, is concomitant with the decline of four other segments: compact and midsize cars and fullsize cars and SUVs. We think the next few years that will tell if the small-car expansion can overcome the large-car retraction, with a phalanx of smaller offerings like the CLA only recently hitting the market and others like the GLA, Macan and Q1 doing so in the near future.

Wagons make a bit of a comeback, with new models, sales on the rise

Consider this an official invitation to hop on the wagon bandwagon. There's still tons of room because, well, it's a wagon (and market share is still extremely small). But according to new data, the segment is growing. According to a report from Bloomberg, using data from Edmunds.com, roughly 211,600 Americans purchased wagons in 2018. That is technically down from the 237,600 sold in 2017, but wagon sales in the U.S. are up 29 percent from where they were five years ago. It's also the third year in a row that wagon sales broke the 200,000 mark. The sales trends have been somewhat representative of the availability of wagons. New models have debuted during the past 5 years and therefore offer more opportunity at more brands to buy wagons. In addition to more modest cars such as the Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen, several luxury and performance brands are offering wagons today, such as Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Porsche, Jaguar, Volvo and Buick. (Bloomberg's headlines make the point that "crossovers are for the Kardashians," and wagons are just, well, classier.) This uptick in brand-name availability, as well as extremely well-executed design on most of the wagons currently available, has helped increase the segment's desirability. That, and its ability to better accomplish the same tasks at hand while standing out from the crossover and SUV crowd. Still, the posted numbers represent a small fraction of the total vehicles sold. According to the data, wagons only held a 1.4 percent market share in 2017, the segment's best recent year. Wagons hold a steadfast place in America's past, and they're writing an interesting new story. With the downturn in traditional cars, they may continue to create an unexpected narrative. Related Video: News Source: Bloomberg, Edmunds Audi BMW Buick Volkswagen Volvo Wagon station wagon