From the Apex · Launch Mode ·

Audi has rebuilt the A2. A quirky, endearing shape that deserves to sell better than the original.

Orders open today at €38,200. Audi calls it the most efficient car it has ever built. The last A2 made the same claim and lost money on every one it sold.

  • Audi has revived the A2 as an electric hatch. Unveiled 7 September, orders open today, deliveries from December 2026.
  • 12.8 kWh/100 km on the 140 kW car with the efficiency package, which Audi calls the most efficient car it has ever built.
  • The original chased the same number in aluminium, built 176,377, and lost money on all of them.
  • No plans for India, yet.

Audi revived a nameplate it killed for being too clever. The clever part is exactly what it left behind.

Audi unveiled the A2 e-tron on 7 September and opened order books today, with deliveries from December. It costs from €38,200 in Germany, comes in four power levels from 125 kW to 240 kW on three battery sizes, and runs 4.32 metres long on a 2,764 mm wheelbase, the same wheelbase as a Q4 e-tron. The 140 kW car with the efficiency package claims 12.8 kWh/100 km and up to 646 km. Audi calls it the most efficient car it has ever built. No plans for India, yet.

That claim is why the name is back. The first A2 ran from 1999 to 2005 on an aluminium Space Frame whose bodyshell weighed 153 kg, and its 1.2 TDI was the world's first four-door three-litre car. Audi built 176,377 and lost money on every one. Aluminium was space age at the time. The cost of it was the whole problem.

This one gets there on Volkswagen group MEB parts, shared with the ID.3 Neo and the Cupra Born, built in Ingolstadt on tooling other cars help pay for. The shape does the rest: a drag coefficient of 0.24, Audi's best in the compact class, which is why it came out short, tall and slightly odd rather than as another scaled-down crossover. Everyone else is converging on one silhouette. Tapered nose, full-width light bar, the same flank in three sizes. Mercedes is the clearest example.

The cabin is halfway there. A new switch module on the steering column takes functions off the centre console, including the parking brake. Keeping up with wrong trends, a 12.8-inch curved touchscreen and sensors for door handles. The real retreat from screens is dated: Audi's technical chief Rouven Mohr said in July that a concept called Radical Next will shrink the displays and rebuild the physical switches, from 2028, starting with the A4 e-tron. The A2 is early for it.

The first A2 was too good an idea to make money. Audi spent twenty-one years working out how to have the idea cheaply.