SHANGHAI MOTOR SHOW: Audi AI:ME revives A2 vibes

Audi has had a couple of attempts at reviving its A2 premium city-car, but the Audi AI:ME concept car could have the best chance yet of reaching a showroom.

The original Audi A2 failed in 2005, but it was a technical showcase a decade ahead of its time and it’s an itch Audi had tried to scratch ever since. And now it has. Again.

Audi unveiled the 4300mm long compact city-car just ahead of today’s Shanghai motor show, with a full electric powertrain and an idea for geo-fenced autonomously driven car sharing.

While it’s about the size of the Audi A3, the AI:ME is much larger inside than the mainstay Audi hatch, with an interior approaching the size of the A4 or even the A6.

It boasts extremely short overhangs at both ends, a flat floor, side doors that open in opposite directions and Level 4 self-driving capability. That means it is capable of being driven or driving itself in all situations, but the driver can retake control at any time (Level 5 means there is no steering wheel at all).

There’s no speed-demon at work behind the sleek bodywork that looks to be an extension of the Aicon concept from 2017.

Instead, it has been designed for hard-core city work, with a prioritised operational window of between 20km/h and 70km/h, with just 65kWh worth of battery charge available to drive the rear-mounted 125kW electric motor.

With a width of 1.9 metres and a 2.77-metre wheelbase (it’s also 1.52 metres high), Audi insists on calling it a ‘2 Plus X seater’, because it has a tremendously flexible interior layout.

The user-interface for its vast array of driving and infotainment systems does away with scrolling or even touch-screens and instead uses a combination of eye tracking, spoken commands and touch-sensitive pads in the door rail, just ahead of the armrest.

There’s a three-dimensional OLED monitor that runs the full width of the dashboard, and it even has virtual-reality goggles for the infotainment system.

Audi has been on a charge with electric concepts lately, including the e-tron GT and last year’s PB18 sports car concept, and it has another car coming at September’s Frankfurt motor show.

Its ride-sharing concept revolves around a future where parts of cities are geofenced, either using GPS or radio-frequency identification, to allow autonomous driving.

People would have to drive the cars themselves outside those zones, but once inside them the steering wheel would retract into a walnut cover, which doubles as a table.

Its Chinese leanings are obvious with the interior’s material mix, which includes wood, high-tech materials and plants. Yes, plants. They are highly prized in China for their ability to clean the air.

While Audi hasn’t specified what architecture the compact EV would use, its size suggests it’s too small for the Audi-developed C-BEV architecture beneath the e-tron, the J1 set-up beneath the Porsche Taycan and the e-tron GT, and the PPE architecture that will sit beneath future large premium EVs.

Instead, it will most likely sit on top of the Volkswagen Group’s Modular Electric Matrix (MEB) architecture, which will also host the entire Volkswagen I.D, range, plus Seats, Skodas and anybody else who wants a piece of it.

It wouldn’t be the first Audi off the architecture, either, with the Geneva show’s Q4 e-tron concept also sitting on MEB.