Way back in February, we wrote about the upcoming Audi A2 e-tron hatchback. And seven months on, here we are! Audi pulled the wraps off the production A2 e-tron today in Paris, and key information about the small fancy Audi is out, as well as unmasked photographs. In these shots we see a Pistachio Green launch-spec A2 e-tron: time will tell if it’s a hard nut to crack.
If you don’t know the original Audi A2, it was a city car or a commuter car produced in the 2000s, offering seating for four and a cool design with five doors but an engine cover that was nailed shut. Up front was a service panel, from which the owner could check and top up fluids, and anything beyond that would be done at a service bay which would undo the hood.
The original aluminum-bodied A2 was engineered to be super-frugal at any price, which meant it cost Audi a lot to produce, but it also used as little as 3-4 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers. Several decades on, the A2 has now been reborn as a small and tall electric hatchback, bearing the e-tron name.
The design is unmistakably today’s or tomorrow’s Audi, and it’s certainly an A2, no doubt about it. It isn’t quite as minimalistic as the early-2000s one, but then again, few things are. The exterior wears a design that’s less overtly a hat-tip to the original than about packaging a modern EV into a small footprint, with a front end that hides headlights in the edges of a full width grille. The wheels are also significantly larger than in hatchbacks of yesteryear, even if the wheel design at least in these launch-spec photos pays homage to the 2000s car. The wheel selection ranges from 18 inches to 20 inches in size, and they’re not pizza cutters like in the BMW i3, as tire width is 235 mm at its widest.
The design and engineering of the wheelarches has been optimized for airflow, door handles are tiny little items, and the underbody is completely flat. This means a drag coefficient of 0.24, compared to 0.25 of the original.
It’s Rear Wheel Drive
The new A2 e-tron comes with three battery sizes and four power levels. The smallest battery is a 52kWh LFP unit, and the cheapest A2 produces 125 kW of power, or 170 horsepower; the biggest battery is an 84kWh NMC one that is offered in two versions that produce either 170kW (230hp) or 240kW (326hp). That means a 0-62 mph figure of 8,8 seconds for the slowest A2 e-tron and 5,7 seconds for the fastest one. The original A2 never had a performance version (3L stood for 3 liters per 100km, not 3 liters of displacement), but perhaps Audi is eager to bring in customers used to the Volvo EX30 and its power levels.
Unlike the EX30, the A2 e-tron will only be available in a rear-wheel-drive configuration. Yes! It’s a RWD Audi, something only the R8 could claim to be before Audi brought rear-drive EVs to the market. The A2 e-tron shares its MEB platform with the VW ID.3, which explains the setup. It’s built at the Ingolstadt Audi plant in Germany, not at a VW factory.
The most efficient version is the one not yet mentioned above: the 140kW (190hp) one with a 61kWh LFP battery. As its combined consumption is said to be just 12.8 kWh/100km (WLTP) or 4.85 miles per kWh, it’s now called the most efficient Audi ever. Compare that to the turbodiesel original, which managed 78.4 mpg, and you’re still getting ahead while spending just pennies, especially if you live in a country with expensive diesel ($11/gal where I’m sitting) and cheap electricity. In comparison, the diesel’s fuel consumption represents around two miles per kWh in energy consumption, if a liter of diesel contains 10kWh of energy.
As Much As 401 Miles Of Range
But if you want range that equals diesels in any way, the big-battery version is said to be able to reach 401 miles in 190hp guise. It also produces 401 lb-ft of torque, or 545Nm, and the large-battery models can DC charge at 183kW maximum. The smaller-battery versions can manage around 100kW at best, which isn’t a spectacular figure in 2026. That said, all of the versions are quoted a 10% to 80% charging time under half an hour. As well as charging, the cars can deliver power, as they support V2L (powering laptops and appliances) as well as V2H (powering homes).
Audi is pitching the A2 e-tron as an efficient car, lengthening the range by means of efficiency and low consumption. Still, offering the car with a large 84-kWh battery and not the small 37kWh battery available in some of the smaller VW-Audi-Seat-Skoda EVs speaks volumes of the car’s positioning and how holy a long range is when it comes to Audi premium branding. The A2 e-tron also replaces the A1 hatchback and the Q2 crossover models from the lower end of Audi’s model portfolio.
A2 e-tron prices start at 38,200 euros in Germany. That’s a touch above $44k, but since it’s unlikely to be sold in the States, pricing might perhaps be a moot point. For comparison, the Volvo EX30 is currently priced a little cheaper in Germany, as prices start from 34,900 euros for the Essential and almost exactly the same for the Core, which costs 38,200. The cheapest Volvo does only have the 150-horsepower P3 drivetrain, while the more expensive Core model has the 200kW/272hp P5 setup which used to be the cheapest.
As for cheaper VW-Audi EVs, the new front-engine, front-wheel-drive ID.Polo is priced at 25,000 euros for the dinky 37kWh / 115 horsepower version, and the 52kWh / 155kW / 207-horsepower version costs a little under 34,000 Euros, already a good jump towards the Audi’s starter price. And since the Audi is based on the same bones as the bigger ID.3, it should offer more space.
Just like the Volvo EX30, the Audi also includes recycled materials in the interior, and the vertical fresh air vents have a similar design. The optional finish for the dashboard and doorcards in the above shot is called Softwrap in Audi’s press materials.
More Space Than An ID.Polo
Audi says the A2 e-tron offers “generous space” and an ambiance “previously associated primarily with models above the compact segment”. That is an advantage of packaging the powertrain neatly near the rear axle, as it leaves more space for the passenger cabin.
That said, the EX30 also relies on the same skate-boardy layout, and the rear seat on those is definitely tight for a six-foot adult – think first-generation Hyundai Kona. Space is the ultimate luxury, and if a fancy small car can offer a spacious rear seat, that’s already a mark in its favor. The EX30 is 166.7 inches long and has a 104.3-inch wheelbase: comparable figures for the A2 e-tron are a 170-inch length and a 109-inch wheelbase. The Audi is 70.5 inches wide, which is actually a couple inches narrower than the Volvo.
The 2000s Audi A2 was 150 inches long, with a 95-inch wheelbase. The trunk size is nearly the same between the new and old Audis at around 390 liters.
Note, that the original, aluminum-bodied A2 also weighed less than 2,000 lbs at its lightest. All of the A2 e-tron versions weigh over 4,000 lbs, which is perhaps the biggest deviation from the 2000s original, along with the upscaled power output and angrier front end design. There isn’t much variety in the way the different versions tip the scales, as the lightest, starter model weighs 4,056 lbs and the heaviest 4,255 lbs.
The original A2 is already a classic, or at least a “youngtimer,” as funky 1990s-2000s cars are sometimes called. Since the new one wears the same name, and sits in the same market position, I hope it will be in time considered at least half as cool as the original. But for Audi’s sake, I hope it will be more profitable to produce.
(Images: Audi)
Seems like the Chinese cars will destroy this. Better battery tech and a better interior. The only reason to have one would be as a leased urban escape pod. But why when public transportation in Europe is as good as it is?
The A2’s design was always challenging, but at least it used to look like all of its components belonged to the same car.
This new thing is all kinds of incongruous, its design is one cup of nostalgia dunked into a pint of embarrassment. Every detail that’s been added or changed is a transparent effort to decrease its visual heft, there are no less than five somewhat-horizontal lines across the bottom of the door and lower sill, all meant to hide how tall that panel is and none of them really belonging to the design.
The entire rear bumper is disguised as a bulbous, not-really-diffuser-shaped diffuser and the huge Wil E Coyote-painted-on-tunnel-style grille up front dominates the fake 3/4-scale face that’s inset into the upper center of the car’s front, with the real cheeks and jaw disguised as a colossal splitter. It reminds me of the Youabian Puma.
Audi Meh 2… but that’s corporate philosophy, meh it all.
Oppinion about the new A2:
Power and energy are good.Energy consumption is very good.RWD is bonus.Price is acceptable for an entry luxury car.4000 lbs weight is a NO DEAL for me.
As a former A2 owner:
Still one of the only things Tesla does right with the Model 3 is that it is lighter than the competition which drives up efficiency. This is substantially smaller than the Model 3, but with the same battery size, weighs several hundred pounds more. It’s infuriating that most EV manufacturers seem to just be saying, oh well, batteries are heavy, so fuck it.
The original A2 at its lightest was just under 900kg! The new one is literally double the weight.
It looks like a late 00s Ford concept. It needs more Audi.
It’s a disappointment, but given the underpinnings, it was always going to be.
The original A2 was special because it was a radical rethink of what an urban car could be. This one is just an MEB clone with moderately successful retro styling. I suppose RWD is a nice surprise.
Specs are outdated for 2026. The smaller battery choices are useless and that charging speed isn’t acceptable these days.
Modern Audi interiors are atrocious. This one might be the worst of them all. How has Audi fumbled interiors so much? It was such a strength for them historically.
I think it’s a big miss that it’s still only available with the relatively slow charging 400 volt system when they’ve brought 800 volt cars to market already 2 years ago. It’s a shame that VAG as an org is not nimble enough to bring new battery packs and power electronics at even half the rate that China can.
A friend of mine had the original A2 and it’s reliability was such that he relied on his Italian 2-stroke motorcycle instead.
I saw an A2 that had been sawn in half for benchmarking. It was a weird and clever car.
I think the A2 is one of the best-designed cars ever, and I like the new version a lot too, but it’s a shame that they reproduced most of the original so closely – with a bit of buccal fat removal around the haunches – except for the front, where it’s gone from like Thomas the Tank Engine to Smaug.
Front end looks like the AUDI brand (no ‘rings’ logo) design in China.
Curious why they’d do that? The original A2 looked much sleeker than this new one.
https://www.audi.com/en/audi-in-china-5583
Headlights in China AUDI are embedded within the black surround of the body-colored “grille”, though still a strong resemblance to with new European A2.
https://www.autonews.com/volkswagen/audi/ane-audi-china-models-imported-to-germany-0821/
https://cdn.artstation.com/p/thumbnails/001/738/973/thumb.jpg
Would be nice to see these especially in that color instead of the German rainbow q5 lease machines you see everywhere. This also feels like the previous a2 trap Audi got its self in. Is it actually a premium product or is it more of non premium badged as a premium. Between Hyundai and the various Chinese brands being sort of premium enough as to where Audi has found themselves. Might be more of test for Audi as a brand vs the actual vehicle but that seems to be where they have been for a number of years.
I like the interior picture. It even looks like the center armrest/cup holder thing might be removable.
The possum rictus styling with tiny headlights and enormous grill is pretty awkward though. The Hot Wheels inspired wheels as pretty ugly too.
Needs Redlines
VAG Friday:
We have to get rid of tons of car models and variations! Seat is gone! Ducati is gone! Profitability is #1 for our survival!
Also we have too many EVs and not enough hybrids!
VAG Monday:
Hey – look at this completely new version of an Audi that sold so poorly we discontinued it 21 years ago – but this one is based on a VW and a Cupra (which is really just a Seat) but with completely different everything except for the Audi steering wheel!
Oh, and it’s an EV!
/facepalm
It’s replacing both the Q2 and A1, so it is a reduction in the number of models. Underneath the skin it is pretty similar to those other VW and Cupra/Seat models, and several of the changed parts are shared with other Audi models. And because it is such a small vehicle, it is not going to be sold in any of the markets that requires hybrids.
I get the irony that is pointed out, but I doubt Audi product planning for the A2 was done during the weekend. It was clearly already decided that this vehicle was being released well before the recent desire to trim total VAG vehicles..
Might as well go par for the course considering the cheque for the vehicle development costs has already been signed and spent.
Well, I suppose Audi could’ve pulled a JaGUar (is that how they type it now?), scrap plans, and not produce a vehicle for which they spent critical company money developing…
Jaguar did it.
Honda did it.
I’m sure others have too.
Perhaps Audi isn’t doing it because they realized that there’s more to the world than the US market – and people worldwide are clamoring for small, efficient EVs.
Tho I don’t know how many are clamoring for small, expensive EVs.
The original A2 wasn’t a failure. It was planned as an absolutely overengineered niche model from the very beginning. Even though it was obvious that most people wouldn’t be able or willing to afford it, those who were interested in cars and technology were impressed.
The new one, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be more than a cynical Cimarron/Catera-style attempt to make as much profit as possible from the existing platform. The VW ID.3 neo looks like it has become a halfway decent car after the Mopf and the Cupra (no, I don’t understand why they didn’t stick with “SEAT” either) Born’s styling fits the target group. But I fail to see any redeeming value in the new A2. There are no connections to the old one except a passing resemblance regarding the body, and even that’s defaced by the big grille that looks like $(#€!$$€.
I hope it will be in time considered at least half as cool as the original.
Sorry, Antti. Not a chance in hell.
Does an EV really require a full width grille or any grille? That’s my major complaint with with the design, all else looks fine. Enjoy your new toy rest of the world.
No, they do not.
Even ICE vehicles do not need full-width grilles
(See 1990’s)
But at least this one looks like it’s grinning at us rather than threatening murder by multiple lacerations.
I stand by my possum rictus comparison.
It describes the involuntary, frozen death grimace an opossum displays when it plays dead heavily threatened, its nervous system enters a catatonic, shock-like state. During this involuntary defense mechanism, the animal falls limp, its eyes roll back, and its lips draw back to expose its 50 sharp teeth. This wide-open, stiff facial spasm—coupled with the excretion of a foul odor—mimics a rotting corpse to deter predators.
In other words Audi freaked out, shit their pants, and designed this front end.
If there is a more logical explanation I’d love to hear it.
What’s that smell?
Apparently Russians don’t like the smell of the Chinese new cars. They prefer German new car smells. I don’t know what that says about either smell but if Russians as a whole like something I tend to think twice about it.
Ai prompt “make this small city car more aggressive and look less like a Hyundai Kona” ? But the amount of currywurst vw produces rotting corpse smell could also be a problem.
Yeah, its pretty ridiculous that the EV has a bigger grille than its ICE predecessor, this could have been a real opportunity to do some cleaner design in keeping with Audi’s brand ethos, and they didn’t. Pretty sure big overwrought grilles are even getting played out in China now
Yeah – look at the newest, most desirable Chinese EVs:
No grilles.
Are rappers even doing grilles anymore?
No – They’re doing The Beat w/ Ari Melber
Only on Fridays.
A missed opportunity both in engineering and aesthetic terms. I don’t blame them on the engineering side, seems like current day VAG isn’t in the position to afford such an ambitious and expensive risk as the original A2. Using the id3 platform with some little tricks sprinkled here and there makes commercial sense.
But apart from an overall similarity of silhouette, it employs none of the Bauhaus-like discipline of the original A2 (or any other late 90s-early 00s Audi for that matter). Wayyy too aggressive, massive fake plastic ‘grille’ and awkward DRLs that fit to nothing else (+ why the HECK would you slice through your own logo with said fake grille?? It looks so fragile and random). Now that Marc Lichte is outta there things can only get better.
Running the numbers to get a comparison – Diesel has about 10.7 kwh per litre, and a mile is 1.609km. So 3l/100km is 32.1kwh/100km, and the electric version is 12.81kwh/100km. If anything this just goes to show how impressive the A2 was using 00s technology.
The VW XL1 which was based on the same diesel technology could manage 1l/100km, or 10.7kwh/100km – beating the electric A2.
The VW XL1 would be a great starting point for a lightweight, engaging, driver-focused electric sports car. Imagine a mid-motored, RWD EV weighing in around 2,500 lbs like a Miata, having the VW APP550 282 horsepower drive system in it, and still getting like 200+ miles range doing 70 mph on the highway. The XL1 is so aerodynamically efficient a platform that it wouldn’t need any more than a 35 kWh pack to pull it off, and with that sort of power to weight ratio, the acceleration would be like that of a hypercar with a far more expensive price point.
Eh 2 Brut-eh
I suppose on the Ides of March you have to bleed its brakes.
Vorsprung durch Stabby?
Or its brakes bleed you.
How refreshing. An historically educated and refined individual here on the Autopian.
I’ll take the old one. Owned 2 Lupos with the same long range (diesel) tech, but the A2 was always 15K more, when they were new.
The A2 TDI 3L had slightly better Cd at 0.25 than the Lupo 3L at 0.29. Both are excellent platforms from an efficiency standpoint, at least as far as production cars go. So light, so little frontal area. They make great platforms for an EV conversion that would put any modern offering to shame when it comes to miles per kWh.
If the goal is an affordable EV for the masses, platform efficiency with a simple design is where you must start. Keep the battery cost and battery weight down for a desired amount of range by focusing on platform efficiency, and come standard with minimal features, and everything else follows from there. Start with a bloated, heavy platform with all of the bells and whistles, and no matter what you do, the cost and mass are going to creep up.
cd is only part of the deal…people always talk about it but seem to forget about the frontal area. If you take it into consideration, both A2 and Lupo are pretty much on the same level, as the larger frontal area of the A2 equals out the lower cd.
Talking about cd is always kind of difficult from my point of view. Hard to understand, especially regarding the factors that influence this value (not all “efficient” looking cars are efficient).
Sub 0.2 Cd values should really be standard on cars today, and could be done on cars smaller than the A2 or Lupo. The 1987 Renault Vesta II prototype had a 0.186 Cd, and it came before them. With a larger car, streamlining purely from the standpoint of Cd does become easier because of the changed packaging requirements of the larger vehicle allowing for more design freedom with which to devote to cutting drag coefficient to spite everything else needed to make the vehicle work. A vehicle also doesn’t need oversized drag-inducing wheels or oversized grilles. Ultimately, practical ground vehicle Cd values of ~0.15 could be done with the vehicles still able to use unmodified US road infrastructure(eg. survive abuse on the crap roads in many parts of America). Doing this while retaining the aesthetics desired by the execs, designers, and marketers is difficult.
Right now, we do have the Lucid Air at 0.197, but it’s a big, expensive, heavy tech-bloated thing when I’d like to see lighter, cheaper, smaller cars that are really just meant to be cars more than they are anything else. Even the Tesla Model 3 is a big, heavy, tech-bloated thing, having an industry-leading 0.219 Cd
But the smaller Tesla Cybercab is at 0.2 and would make an excellent small sports car if one would build it into one in spite of its own tech bloat. Imagine a rack and pinion steering system with steering wheel in that thing. It’s currently at 3133 lbs with a 48 kWh pack and amenities suitable for taxi duty. A 30-35 kWh pack would get that weight down to just under 3,000 lbs, and it would have an honest 200 mile range and still all 219 horsepower. More weight might be cut removing various bells and whistles, turning it from a plush taxi into a basic commuter. and if 2,800 lbs could be achieved, that would be one formidable FWD performance car on the roads, as well as a halo car for efficiency and possibly low operating cost.
Lots of words and I get what you are talking about, still I think you missed my point.
Lupos look so cool. I had a quad eye 2003 Polo (no Lupos in Aus), really liked that car
I liked the A2 better 😀 just didn’t have the extra 15K price difference..
But the Lupo 3Ls drove great! Very fast sometimes also, had my first one at 190km/h at one point. And so many innovative details. Still miss that magnesium steering wheel, and hypermiling the meter down to 2,5 litres/100km.
Thanks yet again Antti. 🙂
Though it’s hard to imagine that Audi would ever deign to bring this to America, it’s still of interest to lots of us. I’ve always had a bit of a fetish for the original A2, especially the TDI versions. This is reminiscent of that only it its shape and name. Otherwise, it’s just a reasonably nice-looking small four-door EV hatchback… not that there’s anything wrong with that of course. 😉
Even though I’ve pretty much sworn off of VW-family products now, after having owned a bunch of them over the past 40+ years including an Audi, Audis remain usually handsome and of course, they still have very nice interiors. The Pistachio green on this A2 is attractive (hope that it’s a no-upcharge production color since there aren’t nearly enough green cars around anymore).
The price is a bit dear, but I guess that’s to be expected for a ‘premium’ small EV. It goes w/o saying that Kia’s EV3 would likely provide better bang for the buck, but they lack the brand cachet that some buyers crave (whether those buyers even shop in this lower end of the market, I dunno). We don’t get the EV3 in America either, let alone smaller offerings like the EV2 or Twingo. I really like those kind of cars, though they’re not popular among most U.S. buyers.
Appreciate the coverage. 🙂
The 2027 Kia EV3 is now on sale in the US, starting at just $29,890. That’s for the standard-range EV3 Light FWD trim.
https://electrek.co/2026/08/11/kia-ev3-prices-range-revealed-starting-30000/
EDIT: link wasn’t working…
Ah, I somehow must have missed that. Thanks!
Shame it doesn’t come in green, but there is at least a nice pale blue on offer in addition to the expected black, grey, other grey, and white.
I could see it selling a few in Quebec.
For those that want a small hatchback EV, the Audi would give them an upscale one that would do well in the city.
First Audi I’ve actually liked in a long time. The inside doesn’t look like an arcade, and the outside look nice. Good size too, but here in the land of stupidly gigantic trucks and SUV’s, I guess we’ll never get it.
The original A2 is a much more efficient platform overall. I’d be very tempted to import one and convert it into an EV, and probably get close to 6 miles per kWh. Keeping it simple and mostly-analogue would be easy, and you’d have an EV that could be repaired by any shadetree mechanic in an afternoon. A 30 kWh battery in the OG Audi A2 would probably get a 150-180 mile range, and weigh about the same as it did as an ICE or diesel: somewhere near 2000 lbs. And with the e-tron’s base 170 horsepower drive system, a converted OG A2 would be absolutely nuts to drive.
It’s a shame that car platforms have regressed in efficiency so much over 2+ decades, in spite of all of the technological advancements. The small drop in Cd doesn’t make up for the extra 2,000 lbs or the massive frontal area increase. I think I’ll let the French laugh at the stinking, steaming étron their German neighbors just dropped near them. Hopefully the krauts have the sense to clean it up, but I think the German scheisse videos depicted in “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut” tell the true story of why they left it. They expect everyone to just eat it up.
I know this is a ‘cheap’ car (for an Audi), but PLEASE can we give cars back their interiors? They all look the same and they all suck.
I am doing a car shuffle this week, far far too many cars, and it has struck me how dull they are. The inside is the bit one sees, I like big Citroens but some 2CVs came with stripey cloth, my house does not have mood lighting but it does have contrasts. Stone wall and glass desk. velvet curtains and raw wood , I could go on.
No one has the same taste, I have a T35 that I rent out, full on hippie thing. All rainbows and joss sticks, full on fake counter culture cosplay toy. The other one is a very new Hymer, very up to the moment, and it is a similar toy!