Audi Thinking Small for New A2

Audi will build an eco-car using the Volkswagen group's New Small Family platform, group CEO Martin Winterkorn has told MT. The NSF platform has produced many VW concepts in recent years, including the Up! two-door (and eUp! electric car), the Space Up! microvan, and Up! Lite super-eco streamliner coupe.


"Audi, Seat, and Skoda will join the NSF, too," Winterkorn says. The Seat and Skoda brands are for Europe and developing markets, while the Audi would be more global.

Audi executives have been saying for a year that there will be a new A2, though it will not be an exact replacement for the original. With its expensive all-aluminum construction, the lightweight A2 hatchback had a tall, narrow aero shape that made it extremely fuel efficient. It sold from 1999 to 2005, and it didn't do as well as Audi hoped. (Basically, fuel prices were never high enough to justify it.) The new car would have to be sold at a price position somewhere below the A3.

If it uses the NSF platform, it'll be lighter than the new A1, which is a conventional European "supermini." Key to the new A2's position will be electrification: An EV is the headline powertrain, plus a diesel hybrid for European markets. With these powertrains and the NSF platform, spectacular economy should be achievable. And the Space Up! concept revealed that the platform allows for a relatively roomy body, like the original A2's. The Audi would get its own exterior design and ultra-high-quality interior.