Audi A2 Electric Car Axed

Audi is backpedalling out of its plan to build the A2, which debuted in September, 2011 in Frankfurt.

Part of a growing number of automakers with lukewarm attitudes toward building electric cars at all, Audi seems to side with the growing group that sees the EV market as a disappointment. According to AutoCar, lessons learned during the project will be put to use in future models, but the A2 itself won’t see production.

That means the BMW i3 will have less competition when it comes to market. Still, the two cars would have been in different leagues — at least if both stayed true to their production specs. Audi claimed the car would have offered 114-hp to the front wheels as well as 125 miles of range after four hours of charging.

SEE ALSO: BMW i3 Spy Photos Show Production Headlights

BMW’s i3, on the other hand, is supposed to offer 170 hp and 184 lb-ft of torque and should be capable of gathering an 80 percent charge in an hour.

But is BMW right to stay the course or more like Little Red Riding Hood skipping down a dangerous path with all the naivety of a little girl? After all, the Nissan Leaf has struggled to reach half of the 20,000-unit annual sales goal CEO Carlos Ghosn set out.

SEE ALSO: Scion iQ EV Arrives in US, 90 Units For Car Sharing

The Scion iQ EV was all but axed last year when Toyota announced that it only planned to build a handful for the California market.

Given that, it’s hard not to see Audi’s decision to cancel the car as little more than logical. This isn’t the first time Audi backed out of an electric car project either. Late last year, the automaker also announced that its R8 e-Tron project was on hold indefinitely, leaving Mercedes’ SLS AMG Electric Drive free from competition.

Discuss this story at Audi-Forums.com

[Source: AutoCar]