A week later, you could see the shift with the naked eye in rental lots from Shenzhen to Harbin. Where foreign C-class sedans used to line every row, fresh A6s gleamed nose-to-nose with TT coupes. Image matters in the rental business—people want a car that grants face, and nothing grants face like the car you see in official motorcades. When government leaders started riding in Audis, no one dared say an Audi wasn't "high-class." And the numbers made it easier: the entry A6 carried a sticker around ¥300,000 (≈$41,000), more than ¥100,000 (≈$13,700) cheaper than comparable foreign models. Same presence, solid quality, better deal—fleet owners knew good math when they saw it.
Heifeng didn't haggle with rental fleets personally. He set the price bands—volume down, price down; small orders at market—and moved on. He issued one more adjustment: trim A4 output and lean harder into A6 and TT. The first day's spike had been monstrous; over the week, combined A6 and TT sales crossed fifty thousand ann, settled near ten thousand a day—still feverish for models at their price points. That level would naturally ease toward a steady state, but the factories were humming for now, and transporters were rolling to 4S stores nationwide at dawn.
Not everyone was celebrating. The foreign badges that had squeezed Audi months ago now felt the vise tighten. BMW, Volkswagen, and the Suzuki Alto camp—brands that once laughed at Audi's "price re-shaping"—were watching their charts go off a cliff. They'd been euphoric during their own price-cut carnival, posting smug quips on official Weibo accounts and predicting Audi's brand would never carry the weight. Then the Chinese flag went up on the A8 in the leaders' convoy, the A6 became the official car, and public sentiment turned on a dime. "Face" had flipped sides.
What truly gutted them wasn't just the symbolism—it was the sunlight. Audi's 4S stores went transparent on fees and service, and the internet pounced on the contrast. Threads and short videos dissected the old tricks: "financial service fees," compulsory "optional" add-ons, price-hike pickup charges. Commenters began to use one word over and over: black-hearted. Used-car dealers piled on, saying they were passing on foreign badges for the time being because the secondary market had gone skittish. Sales that had briefly surged to tens of thousands per day during those promotional frenzies fell to mere hundreds, even as those brands extended discounts in a panic. The public saw the hustle for what it was and walked away.
Heifeng watched it all with cool detachment and a touch of grim amusement. He knew those stores would behave—temporarily. Once the heat died down, the old habits would try to creep back in. They were at a critical juncture: cut the nonsense and accept thinner margins, or double down and risk being frozen out by an audience that now had a choice. Online, the tone shifted from outrage to mockery. "Dare you cut prices again?" "When will you stop treating us like ATMs?" "Stop fattening us up like sheep." It wasn't a momentary PR squall anymore; it was a cultural re-labeling.
Meanwhile, the practical world kept moving. Audi's pricing remained sane rather than suicidal; service stayed as promised. The rental industry—an early weathervane for public taste—quietly rewrote its procurement lists: A6 for business, TT for weddings, with the advantage that the badge now reads as both modern and official. The transporters came every day, and the lots made space for the next wave. In the offices, the only talk was production juggling—how many A6s today, how many TTs—and whether the A4 line could be trimmed another notch without starving entry-level buyers. In quiet moments, Heifeng thought back to the lab and smiled. Hype fades. Engineering stays. And this week in China's car market, the world had just learned the difference.