Audi’s self-driving city car
Company confirms plans for small autonomous EV for 2021
AUDI has confirmed plans to launch an autonomous, fully electric, A-segment model, initially for low-volume production. The sub-a1-sized city car will arrive in 2021, Auto Express understands.
The brand confirmed the new urban EV at its annual general meeting in Germany last week. This first official news of the model comes as Audi steps up to take a leading role within the Volkswagen Group for driverless car technology.
The Autonomous Intelligent Driving Gmbh subsidiary, which is in charge of progressing and developing autonomous tech across the VW Group, is working on the technology for “driverless vehicles in urban environments”, according to the brand. The small autonomous Audi will enter series production “early in the next decade”.
Axel Strotbek, Member of the Board of Management of Audi AG for Finance, IT and Integrity, said: “We’re financing our transformation out of our own resources. On the side of expenditure and investment, our ‘Speed up!’ programme is helping us to achieve a high level of efficiency and thus a maximum focus on the topics of the future.”
The standardised self-driving system that will be implemented with the new A-segment car will be applied to models across the VW Group soon afterwards. At the same time, Audi will expand its mobility services, such as car sharing, for urban areas with the intention of offering them in more than 15 markets worldwide before 2020. The first model to receive Level 3 autonomous tech – handing over safety-critical functions from the driver to the car – will be the new A8, which is set to be revealed this summer (see below). The brand has confirmed that a new A7 will arrive before the end of the year, too.
Audi also underlined its intention to launch three new electric models by 2020 – the autonomous city car is not one of these – as well as a range of e-tron hybrid variants of existing models.
“First official news of Audi’s autonomous, fully electric city car comes as brand steps up to take a leading role within VW Group for driverless car tech”