SHANGHAI MOTOR SHOW: Audi debuts A3 sedan

Well, you didn’t expect Audi to let Mercedes have the baby premium sedan market to itself for very long, did you?

And so the prestige battle moves to small sedans. Audi has taken just weeks to officially follow Mercedes-Benz's CLA into the compact premium market with the debut of the production version of its A3 sedan scheduled for the Shanghai motor show today.

With three engines and a feather-weight kerb mass of 1205kg, the A3 sedan builds on the e-tron concept car the Bavarian car maker showed at the Shanghai motor show two years ago. The EV concept was itself based on the original A3 sedan concept unveiled in Geneva a month earlier. 

Audi expects the car to be on sale late in the European summer and it is being pitched just above the A3 Sportback five-door hatch, with which it shares its 2.64-metre wheelbase.

The longest Audi yet off the MQB compact architecture, the A3 sedan stretches out to 4.46 metres and, at 1.8 metres, is about 11mm wider than the A3 Sportback. It’s sleeker and, at 1.42 metres high, 9mm lower than the hatch version, too.

The sedan’s design carries over the concept’s C-Pillar virtually unchanged, with Audi design boss, Wolfgang Egger, admitting it was: “Too crisp and too good to leave it off”.

The production car carries over the front end from the A3 Sportback, though the roofline is far lower and the boot lid contains an integrated spoiler. Besides the way it looks, the tech-rich MQB architecture allows Audi to deliver everything from in-car WiFi to full LED headlights as an option.

Egger insists the car is a combination of a classic three-box sedan design and a coupe philosophy, which sounds a like a much easier sell than Benz’s second four-door 'coupe'.

The end result is 170mm shorter than the CLA sedan, even though the A3 sits on the shorter 2.64-metre wheelbase of the A3 Sportback. That gives the A3 sedan far shorter overhangs than the Mercedes-Benz rival, which has 110mm more metal and plastic hanging outside its wheelbase.

One area in which it has the CLA demonstrably beaten is in its weight. Audi has attached aluminium wherever possible to deliver a base petrol-engined car that is 190kg lighter than the equivalent CLA, despite broadly similar footprints.

At 1205kg, the sedan A3 weighs just 10kg more than the hatchback.

While Audi is pushing the all-wheel drive S3 as the hero version of the A3, the fastest version won’t be available at the car’s European launch and will instead arrive in the fourth quarter of the year, which probably means the second quarter of 2014 for Australia.

The hottest version, the S3 will have a 221kW, 380Nm 2.0-litre TFSI four-cylinder engine with two overlapping fuel injection systems, variable valve timing and lift and start-stop, plus the choice of either dual-clutch or manual gearboxes.

It uses indirect injection at light throttle openings to squirt fuel next to the inlet manifold’s tumble flaps to give a better mix, then it switches to direct injection at both start up and at higher loads.

It’s both faster and more economical with the dual-clutch unit fitted, posting a 0-100km/h time of 4.9 seconds to put it into genuine sports-sedan territory, while its top speed will be limited to 250km/h. At the same time, the S3 will post an NEDC fuel figure of 6.9 litres/100km with a 159 gram emission number for CO2.

The most economical engine available will be the 2.0-litre TDI, but not by the margin over the petrol engines that you might think.

The 2.0-litre TDI and the 1.4-litre TFSI petrol four-cylinder engines both post 8.4-second sprints to 100km/h and both share the same 213km/h top speed, but they arrive there in different ways.

The diesel has more power and torque, with 110kW and 320Nm and has an NEDC figure of 4.2 litres/100km. The 1.4-litre TFSI counters its less impressive 103kW of power and 250Nm of torque by being far lighter and delivering a figure of 4.7 litres/100km and posting just one gram more in its CO2 number of 109 grams/km.

These two engine variants will be front-drive, as will the strongest of the starting A3 sedan motors, the 1.8 TFSI petrol engine.

Curiously, the larger engine delivers the same 250Nm of torque as the 1.4-litre TFSI, but 132kW to make it the fastest of the three standard models to 100km/h. Its 7.3-second sprint to 100km/h is matched with a stronger 232km/h top speed. It’s also a full litre thirstier per 100km than the 1.4-litre TFSI and emits 135 grams/km.

The 1.4-litre petrol achieves its surprising economy with a combination of start-stop (standard on all A3s) and cylinder-on-demand technology, which shuts off the two middle cylinders when the demand for torque is low, then re-fires almost instantly when the driver needs performance again.

The five-seat sedan will try to protect its occupants with a cabin made from hot-formed steels, while the engine, gearbox, driveline, steering and MacPherson strut front suspension are all mounted on a lighter aluminium sub frame.

Its engines are all tilted back by 12 degrees to help maintain a 60:40 front-to-rear weight distribution and it uses the A3 Sportback’s electro-mechanical power steering to save fuel and to plug the steering tighter in to the electronic safety nets.

Its four-link rear suspension is the same unit Volkswagen will fit to the Golf GTi and provides much better tyre accuracy than the standard beam axle Golf rear end.

Its tyre sizes will vary from 16-19-inches and their grip will be helped by an electronic diff lock and an optional sports suspension setup that drops the ride height by 25mm.

Little is changed for drivers who have already sampled the new A3, though, with the A3 sedan promising to deliver much the same driving experience as the A3 Sportback.

The interior carries the same commitment to a premium feel Audi swung into battle with the A3 hatch.

Compared to the 'old' A3 hatch, there are new toggle switches on the centre console to move between the navigation, car setup, radio and entertainment sources. Indeed, instead of having a volume knob and two buttons to move back and forth for radio stations or music selections, the volume knob now doubles as a toggle switch to do both jobs. Instead of needing space for the touchpad, which lets you write in commands with a fingertip, you now do that on top of the MMI knob.

This has given the sedan, like all A3s, one of the cleanest cabins going around, and includes a sleek new MMI screen that is 11mm thin and has a 3D effect and it’s all topped off by a wrap-around boundary at the top of the dash, before the windscreen, much like the A7 and the A8.

Dual-zone air conditioning will be standard, Audi Drive Select is optional (and a must-have, if past Audi tests have been any guide) and allows the driver to change the way the car runs. You can flick between an economy mode, a comfort mode, a dynamic mode and an automatic mode, or you can fiddle around to come up with your own preferences on an Individual setting.

Alongside the standard audio system, you can upgrade to a connectivity pack to enable satnav, then there’s a better sound system with six-channel amplification and 10 speakers. At the top of the audio options is a Bang & Olufsen package with 14 active speakers and a 750 Watt amplifier.

Besides leading the way in chassis architecture, the A3 will be the first Audi with the brand’s new Modular Infotainment Platform, designed to help car electronics, traditionally hamstrung by their long, long lead times, keep up with consumer electronics.

The key to this is a Multi Media eXtension board, which is a replaceable plug-in module in a glovebox-mounted computer. Audi can just rip it out and bung in a new one and voila, up-to-date consumer electronics in the A3.

There’s also the option of using the car as a rolling wifi hotspot and Google Earth and, even, Google Street View on the new, sharper Tegra 2-powered screen.

There are plenty of non-infotainment electronics features, too, including new or upgraded driver assistance systems. It starts with the option of radar cruise control, which can brake the car down to a stop and then keep pace with light-throttle work, like you need in heavy traffic.

It also brings big-boy safety features like active lane assist which now allows the driver to vary its sensitivity, plus Pre-Sense braking which can brake the car almost to its maximum braking threshold in an emergency and there are two front, side and head airbags and a driver’s knee airbag in case that all goes wrong.

Even with the lower roofline, the A3 sedan will deliver more headroom and rear seat space than the old hatch, with full seating for five people.

It has 60 litres more luggage space, at 425 litres, than the three-door A3 hatch and that includes a bumper-level false floor and another hidden unit beneath it. The rear seats also fold flat and there is through-loading capability as well.

Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site…