Audi built an efficient EV in Germany. It is 12cm too long for the rules meant to help

Audi has revealed the A2 e-tron, its cheapest electric car, built in Ingolstadt and priced from EUR 38,200 with up to 646km of WLTP range. At 4.32 metres it is 12 centimetres too long for M1E, the small-car category the Commission proposed in December to make affordable European EVs viable.

Audi has revealed the A2 e-tron, its cheapest electric car, and priced it from EUR 38,200 in Germany, InsideEVs reported. It is built in Ingolstadt, orders open on 10 September and deliveries start in December.

The headline number is range. The best version manages 646km on the WLTP cycle, and the efficiency-focused 188hp car draws 12.8 kWh per 100km with a drag coefficient of 0.24.

Air curtains, gap reducers around the wheel arches and an active cooling intake do that work, over a completely flat underbody.

Four outputs run from 168 to 322hp, all rear-wheel drive. Three batteries are offered at 52, 61 and 84 kWh, with lithium iron phosphate cells in the two smaller ones.

It shares the MEB platform and the Q4 e-tron’s wheelbase with the Volkswagen ID.3 Neo, which starts at EUR 33,995. The four rings cost EUR 4,205.

The number that matters in Brussels is none of those. It is 4.32 metres.

The Commission proposed a new small-car category in December, called M1E and capped at 4.2 metres in length, Autocar reported.

Cars in it that are built in the EU would count as 1.3 vehicles against a maker’s fleet CO2 target, and the requirements would be frozen for ten years.

Audi’s cheapest electric car, built in Germany for Europe, misses that category by 12 centimetres. The super-credit is aimed at 2030 to 2034, so nothing is lost today, and the signal is the point.

The Renault 5 clears the threshold at 3.92 metres. So do the Renault 4 and the coming Volkswagen ID. Polo.

The company knows the market it is entering. Its own China-built models are already reaching Europe through parallel imports and are cheaper than local ones.

Bidirectional charging is standard, which is unusual at this price, and the car can run tools or an appliance at up to 3.6kW. Vehicle-to-home will work only in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at launch.

The original A2 was an aluminium efficiency experiment that ended production in 2005. Its replacement is efficient, German-built and priced above the category Europe is inventing, in a market where EV registrations rose 51% in July.