Audi working on 'highly efficient' new EV

Audi has announced it has begun developing a next generation of electric cars that will consume only a fraction of the energy used by conventional battery-powered vehicles.

Details remain limited, but Audi's new electric car program -- developed under the Project Artemis banner -- is said to be headed up by Alex Hitzinger, the former technical director of Porsche's LMP1 motorsport program.

Project Artemis is tasked with creating a "highly efficient electric car" to go on sale by 2024. As well as consuming less energy, the top-secret EV will also be "highly automated", suggesting it will debut the German car-maker's latest autonomous driving aids.

As well as designing the car, Project Artemis will also "develop an extensive ecosystem around the car, thus designing a new business model for the entire usage phase," says Audi, hinting it might be available on a subscription basis.

This suggests that instead of a long-range large luxury sedan or SUV, Audi might be readying a small city-car to cash in on the migration from public transport in a post-COVID-19 world.

The all-new small Audi EV will be based on a previously announced electric vehicle architecture -- expected to be the same MEB platform as the Volkswagen ID. family.

Also available to Audi within the Volkswagen Group are the MLBevo and Premium Platform Electric (PPE) platforms, and the J1 architecture that currently underpins the Porsche Taycan.

Audi hopes that Project Artemis engineers, who are said to have been given a "large degree of freedom", will be able to work more quickly than conventional car development programs.

Commenting on the new project, Audi CEO Markus Duesmann said Project Artemis will: "Provide a blueprint for a fast and agile development process at the [Volkswagen] Group.

"With 75 planned electric models by 2029, the current electric initiative at the Volkswagen Group naturally ties up all our capacities. The obvious question was how we could implement additional high-tech benchmarks without jeopardizing the manageability of existing projects, and at the same time utilise new opportunities in the markets."