Ah, the Audi A2—the efficiency monster no one bought.
That pretty much sums it up. The original Audi A2 has long been revered by the motoring press for its distinctive shape, cutting-edge aluminum frame, sub-900kg curb weight, and 1.2-liter diesel’s rather spectacular 40km/L. In the pre-hybrid era! Makes today’s plug-ins look like charlatans.
Anyhow, as well as being frugal, the A2 was cool, clever, delightfully over-engineered, roomy, and fun to drive. So obviously, it was a box-office bomb. In its seven years on sale from 1999 to 2006, Audi shifted just 176,000 units and lost somewhere in the region of €1.33 billion on it. Oh, sheiße!
The problem was the A2 offered A3 levels of space...so people just bought that. Forget the radical engineering—why pay sedan money for a supermini?
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Doomed from the start. So why has Audi brought it back?
Because this time, its overheads are much, much lower. Through VW Group’s one-size-fits-all MEB platform, it has access to a ready-made canvas that doesn’t need an eye-watering sum of money to get it off the ground, and there’s a proven market for compact electric cars. Which is what this is.
Audi has also recognized that it can play up to its heritage without looking utterly shameless. This isn’t an iconic nameplate reincarnated as an electrified SUV—this is a modest family car coming back as a modest family car. Only this time, the powertrain is different.
Let me guess: It’s the most efficient electric car ever invented.
I wouldn’t go that far, although Audi is billing the new A2 as an economy meister and claims to have made a number of advancements that live up to the spirit of the old car.
Count ’em. Silicon carbide semiconductors are 10% more efficient than plain old silicon ones. The motor—of the permanently excited synchronous variety—gets thinner laminations (2mm instead of three) to reduce energy losses. New oil reduces friction with the transmission, and is said to be worth 12km when it’s cold.
And then there are the exhaustive measures to reduce drag, which according to Audi—armed with pie charts and a PhD-level formula—account for more than half of the energy demand above 100kph. The rounded front end, flowing roofline, and flat rear all help airflow pass over the car undisturbed; an active air intake behind the grille stays closed when cooling isn’t required; design details at the front end create air curtains to reduce turbulence on the flanks, and inlets ahead of the front wheels (called gap reducers) quell the air inside the wheelarches.
A front spoiler guides clean air over the floor, which is entirely enclosed and incorporates its own spoilers to channel airflow away from the exposed parts of the rear axle, and toward a diffuser which finishes the job. Meanwhile, the tires—fairly stocky 235/45 R19s from Bridgestone—have been chosen to cope with the weight of the rear axle, which in turn minimizes the amount of sidewall squidge and lowers drag.
And yes, all of that was fine-tuned in a wind tunnel.
But we haven’t even got to the best bit. Even the lettering on the sidewalls has been to aero boot camp. And that saves 0.001Cd. Hilarious! And brilliantly nerdy. Might only be worth a few yards over the course of the car’s life, but Audi did it, anyway.
All that means a drag coefficient of 0.24, a hundredth better off than the original car, but slightly behind the current A6 e-tron.
You forgot about the battery. Is it the most energy-dense Audi could find?
No, actually. Audi has opted for LFP (lithium iron phosphate) cells, which don’t pack the same punch as NMC chemistry, but make do without rare earth metals. The charging performance should hold up better with age, too. Also, it’s cheaper. A lesson learned from the Mk1, perhaps.
It does at least boast a cell-to-pack design, allowing engineers to cram in as much energy as possible into the available space.
What does all this mean in practice?
The new A2 ought to make your electrons (and the money you pay for them) count. Driving this virtually finished, Bauhaus wannabe prototype very gently across the Øresund Bridge from Denmark and along the southern tip of Sweden, I coaxed 8.77km/kWh out of the A2 over 2.5 hours at an average speed of 53kph and with temperatures in the mid-to-late teens. So slow and steady, and nothing we weren’t seeing from the first-gen Kia e-Niro seven years ago, but anything over 8km/kWh is mightily impressive.
Apply that to this car’s 58kWh battery and you’re looking at roughly 480km of range. An even bigger 79kWh pack is likely to be offered when this car goes on sale, and a repeat performance from that would break 640km. Peak DC charging for this one has been confirmed at 105kW, with Audi claiming 10% to 80% top-ups in 26 minutes.
These battery sizes sound familiar...
Ah, yes. About that. That’s because the new A2 is essentially the facelifted Volkswagen ID.3 in a more slippery skin. Same windshield and same frontal area, and you can bet your house that the motors and performance will be the same as well. That means 189hp and 0-100kph in around 8sec.
Not that you’ll want to undo all that effort by using full throttle. In Efficiency mode, acceleration is tremendously delicate, and when you lift off, the thing could coast for days. Even in Dynamic mode, the A2 gathers speed rather than lurching forward in a manner that might cook its carefully honed algorithm.
The brake pedal has a lot of travel and allows precise adjustment, but most of the time, the car slows down using regen only, so the paddles behind the steering wheel are really just an alternative serving suggestion. Steering is typical Audi—precise but not heavy—though I’ve got nothing to offer on cornering for now. Turns out the tip of Sweden doesn’t have corners.
That definitely isn’t true. Continue.
The ride on this car was quite firm and fairly busy at low speed, but that’s because it was running sports suspension, which transferred a noticeable amount of noise into the cabin. Tire roar was more prominent than wind noise on the highway, and Audi has deployed acoustic glass on the side windows to tackle sound intrusion.
Visibility won’t be the A2’s forte: The rearview mirror is hampered by the narrow back window, and the A-pillars get in the way at junctions. The seats are decent and offer plenty of manual adjustment, but you have to sit quite low for your elbows to perch comfortably on the armrests.
Oh, and the indicators are weird. It’s a block rather than a stalk, and easily confused with the cruise control. No doubt practice will eradicate that as an issue.
When does it lose the camo? And can I have it for my pop-up wine bar?
In answer to your first question, quite soon. Audi will reveal the A2 in all its glory in the autumn, with sales starting at the end of the year. Prices are TBC, but somewhere in the ballpark of the A3 sedan’s pricing sounds about right. The irony.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
