Audi Now Confirms It Too May Fall Short Of 2008 US Sales Goal

  Volkswagen AG's Audi luxury-vehicle unit doesn't expect to reach its goal of 100,000 U.S. sales this year because of the country's financial crisis, the division's U.S. chief said.

``Given the economic climate right now, 100,000 will probably not be in the cards,'' Johan de Nysschen said in an interview today in New York. ``We all had anticipated some degree of economic adversity. We didn't imagine the largest one-day drop in the history of mankind,'' he said, referring to the 778-point decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Sept. 29.

His comments follow a 3.9 percent drop from a year earlier in Audi's U.S. sales through September, as the Ingolstadt, Germany-based automaker sold 65,817 cars and sport-utility vehicles. For all of 2007, its sales rose 3.8 percent to 93,508.