Audi is planning to shift completely to electric vehicles by 2026 by rolling out the new combustion engines. The brand has even come up with a great idea that in spite of releasing a new pure electric variant the brand will convert its selected existing models to electric vehicles.
As per some recent reports, it has come out that the model (Audi Q3) will not be having any successor as a combustion engine, rather the plan is to replace the existing one with a pure electric model by renaming it as Audi A3 e-Tron.
It is quite obvious that the next-gen Audi A3 e-tron will borrow the MEB platform from the VW ID.3. The RWD and AWD platform is quite likely to receive a considerable amount of changes before it gets installed in the fifth-generation Audi A3 family. Andreas Kruger from Volkswagen Group has already confirmed that an upgraded version of the MEB platform is coming soon.
As we already know that the VW ID.3 Pro S can give a range of up to 550 km in a single charge only because of the MEB platform. Kruger has come forward and said that the Volkswagen Group has even planned to increase the range with the MEB platform up to 700 km. Moreover, the company is also planning to reduce the charging time by increasing the charging capacity from 125 kW to 250 kW.
Not only this, the brand is even planning to add the feature of bidirectional charging which is a prerequisite for V2G (Vehicle-to-Grid) and V2H (Vehicle-to-Home) applications. This feature can not only give power to home appliances but can even allow the customers to charge other EVs with their cars. Thus, many interesting features can be added to the MEB platform before the car enters the market.
Connection with VW Trinity & Audi Apollon projects
According to some reports, it has come out that the internal name of the fifth-gen Audi A3 (e-tron) is ‘Audi E3’. Also, it mentions some unique features of the car:
- It may have technical commonalities with the Project Trinity
- Volkswagen’s groundbreaking flat
- sporty sedan with high range
- extremely short charging times
- revolutionary production techniques
- highly digital
Audi with VW Project Trinity has confirmed a sister model- the Audi Apollon. It might use the same learnings and elements as in the next-gen A3 e-Tron.
Next-gen Audi A3 Electric expected around 2026
In March 2020, the Sportback (hatchback) version of the fourth-gen Audi A3 got debuted and then the brand debuted the sedan version a month later. From all this, we can conclude that Audi is becoming quite faster in launching new cars and we never know that the next-gen Audi A3 would also get released any time before 2026. All these points clearly indicate that the brand has accepted the shift from combustion vehicles to electric vehicles and has also started doing the planning.
Audi has set a long-term goal, that by 2030 the brand will sell around:
- 19 million MEB EVs
- 7 million PPE EVs
It has also come out in the rumours that the next-gen Audi A3 will be competing with Tesla Model 3.
