Jailed Audi CEO to be fired shortly: report

Audi chief executive officer (CEO) Rupert Stadler will be sacked shortly after being arrested in the course of German "dieselgate" investigations more than nine weeks ago, the newspaper "Handelsblatt" reported on Monday night.

"Handelsblatt" cited an insider on the Volkswagen Group supervisory board, Audi's parent company, who said that the senior figures at the carmaker wanted to prevent further reputational damage to the luxury brand by firing the currently suspended Stadler.

"Anything other than Stadler's sacking (at an upcoming supervisory board on September 28th) would be surprising", the source said.

Stadler is the first senior automotive manager in Germany to be jailed as a consequence of the diesel emissions scandal. His contract at Ingolstadt-based Audi was extended by a further five years as recently as May 2017.

Since Stadler's arrest and resulting suspension, Audi head of sales Bram Schot has temporarily assumed his duties at the luxury carmaker. However, it is Markus Duessman, the former procurement chief recently poached from Munich-based and fellow Bavarian rival BMW, rather than Schot, who is widely cited in German media as Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess preferred choice to replace Stadler.

The "Handelsblatt" report suggesting that this anticipated transition from Stadler to Diess is now imminent was published on the same day as the official presentation of the Audi "Etron" in San Francisco, the company's first ever fully-electric Special Utility Vehicle (SUV).

Audi is hoping to turn the page on the diesel emissions scandal with the "Etron" and has hereby at least intermittently taken the lead in a race by German carmakers to electrify their fleets. BMW and Mercedes-Benz are both scheduled to release their own battery-powered SUV models, the BMW "ix3" and Mercedes "EQC", soon as well.

Audi is more embroiled in the "dieselgate" emissions-cheating scandal than its local competitors BMW and Mercedes, a circumstance which has sparked fears among its management and workforce that it could suffer longer-term losses of market share in the prestigious and lucrative luxury automotive segment.