Skimpy powertrain choice for new Audi A3 sedan

The new Audi A3 sedan is due for local launch early in 2021, but Aussie buyers may be stuck with the existing 1.4-litre four-cylinder engine that’s already doing duty in the current range.

While the latest iteration of Audi’s small car has reached showrooms in Europe this month and the manufacturer has been taking orders for it since April, the 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine offered there won’t be immediately available to Aussie buyers, an Audi exec has indicated.

“We always make sure that we have a specific market offer for engines, and in Australia we will start with 110kW all the way up to the very sporty models and offer the full gamut really,” Audi spokesman Tobias Söllner confirmed through an interpreter, during a live-streamed presentation earlier this month.

But confusingly, both the new 1.5-litre engine and the old 1.4 develop 110kW (as does the 2.0-litre diesel TDI engine too, for that matter). And it’s the older petrol engine that will be the entry-level powerplant for the new A3 in Australia, according to Jürgen Kornprobst, Audi’s technical expert for the A3 program.

“It's very market-specific, but with market launch we'll start with the 1.4-litre, but step by step we want to also export the latest [powertrain technology],” Kornprobst was quoted saying by the interpreter.

“Over the lifecycle we're quite optimistic that we will make sure that you will have the offer of Europe also available in Australia.”

If we do get the 1.5-litre A3 here, it will most likely be the mild-hybrid model with an S tronic (dual-clutch) automatic transmission, producing 110kW/250Nm and returning a WLTP combined-cycle fuel consumption figure of no more than 4.9L/100km.

“If customers decide to go for a seven-speed S tronic, they have an additional 48-volt mild-hybrid system on board that allows the A3 to save up to 0.4 litres of fuel for every hundred kilometres driven,” says Söllner.

“However, the electrified drive offers further advantages, as it enables the driver to coast with the engine switched off and to recuperate energy – and it provides a boost function to support the driver when starting off.”

The 1.0-litre three-cylinder engine which was introduced to the A3 range in Australia back in 2016 has been effectively ruled out for the new range in our market.

An Audi Australia spokesman told carsales the three-cylinder was introduced here to target fleet buyers primarily, but is no longer sold in Australia and will not be reintroduced here in the new Audi A3 sedan either, despite the existence of three-cylinder variants offered in the new range for European markets.

Audi doesn’t currently sell the A3 with a diesel four-cylinder in Australia either, so that’s another engine that is offered in Europe but unlikely to reach the showrooms here.

Audi tech guru Kornprobst also advised that Australia continues to be treated as a ‘hot climate’ for the sake of product specifications. That is presently under discussion, however.

“Yes, we are looking into this possibility, but so far we’ve not decided on anything definitive, so it’s still the hot-weather specs for Australia...” he said.

In the meantime, that suggests the new Audi S3 will be detuned for the Aussie market.

There is some good news, however. Söllner hinted that the petrol-engined A3 range won’t be limited to the 1.5-litre (or 1.4) turbocharged four-cylinder and the 2.0-litre turbocharged engine in S3.

There will be an “intermediate step” for quattro models. It’s anticipated that the quattro models will be powered by a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder, as they are at present.

Neither these ‘intermediate’ quattro powertrain variants nor the plug-in hybrid models are launched globally yet, and the latter is not confirmed for Australia in any case.

“We are already entitled to say, as we speak, that we will have an offer of plug-in hybrids... the question is still which markets will be offered this? At this moment I cannot say anything specific about Australia as we talk,” Söllner said.

Audi has sold the A3 e-tron in Australia previously, so there’s a better than even chance the new plug-in variants will go on sale here too, given our changing attitude to alternative-energy vehicles.

The new Audi A3 sedan has grown in size. At 4cm longer than its predecessor and 15cm longer than the A3 Sportback, the hatchback version of the A3, the new sedan will slide through the air with a slightly improved aerodynamic drag coefficient of 0.25Cd, which is a good figure for a relatively short three-box passenger car.

“Significant contributions to this rating are made by controllable cooling air inlet behind the single frame [grille], exterior mirrors with improved aerodynamics... underbody and the active brake cooling,” Söllner explained.

The new Audi A3 will come to market with seat upholstery from recycled PET plastic, a 10.1-inch infotainment touch-screen, matrix LED headlights (for high-grade models), traffic sign recognition and adaptive cruise assist that adjust the speed automatically for cornering and different speed limit zones.