Costco members get a $5,000 discount on some Audi EVs

Beginning August 1, Costco members can get discounts of thousands of dollars on new Audi EVs.

The discount applies to purchases or leases of 2023 and 2024 Audi models, including all of the luxury brand’s EVs. The biggest discount—$5,000—goes to the E-Tron GT and RS E-Tron GT sedans. Because it shares the J1 platform with the Porsche Taycan the E-Tron GT and its sportier RS sibling is one of the quickest-charging EVs on the market, with 800-volt charging.

A $1,500 discount is also available for the Q4 E-Tron and Q8 E-Tron crossover families, including both the standard and Sportback body styles. The Q8 E-Tron is the updated and rebranded version of the Audi E-Tron, the automaker’s first production EV. The smaller Q4 E-Tron shares the MEB platform with the Volkswagen ID.4 and other EVs from the VW brand.

In addition to the discounts for all-electric models, a $1,000 discount is available for the Audi Q5 TFSI e plug-in hybrid. Launched for the 2021 model year, this plug-in version of Audi’s popular Q5 compact crossover has an EPA-rated 23 miles of electric range, and achieves 26 mpg combined after that.

Audi isn’t the only EV brand that has offered impressive Costco discounts. Just earlier in the year you could get $2,500 off some Volvo models—including revamped rear-wheel-drive XC40 Recharge and C40 Recharge EVs.

But Costco has no plans to add EV charging, in the way that it uses gas pumps as a traffic-driver. The retailer was one of the earliest to install EV chargers, but in 2011 it ripped them out. The chargers had been installed at certain California locations only, serving Costco customers driving the handful of electric cars then sold in the state by the highest-volume automakers under an earlier iteration of California’s emissions regulations.