Audi Pulls The Plug On Electric A2 And e-tron A1 Due To Price Tag

CAR can reveal that Audi has cancelled its electric A2 city car project, citing concerns over the model's projected €40,000 price tag.

But the A2 is not the only Audi to be put on ice in Audi's electric car review. The A1 e-tron also looks to have been axed, as Audi slims down its future EV plans.
Why has the Audi A2 EV been dropped?

The A2 concept was first shown in 2011, boasting an 85kW, 199lb ft electric motor and 125-mile range. Audi predicted the premium-priced city car could go into production by 2015, to fight BMW's similarly conceived i3.

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Steve - 6/5/2012 10:43:31 AM

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In my cynical mind, Audi jumped onto the electric vehicle (EV) band-wagon because it was the trendy thing to do. After all, "everyone else" is hyping *their* EV, so Audi can't allow themselves to look like anything but a progressive, "up to date," and innovating company. So presto! "Me too"...Audi has an EV program.

Then when budgets are blown, real costs tallied, and realistic Return on Investment (ROI) was calculated, Audi realized this was not a profitable venture. What's the point of sinking big bucks into EV R&D, and then not having a sizeable enough demand to consume the products produced? They could sell very small numbers at a loss, but then again, Enterprises are profit oriented, so that proposition is unappealing. Pricing the vehicle according to costs leaves the vehicle being prohibitively expensive. And it appears there aren't enough affluent "save the planet by buying an EV" people around to make production worth while.

Anyway, that's just *my* speculation.

Agent009 - 6/5/2012 11:16:04 AM

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I think you are right on target there. They ran the numbers and thought "who would buy this without an incentive?". The end result is the saying your green almost always hand in hand with saving you money as well.

In this case the costs are not worth it.