New affordable electric car coming to supercharge sales? Audi Australia shows interest in entry-level Q2 e-tron EV to rival Volvo EX30 and Mercedes-Benz EQA by 2026

Audi is readying an electric car attack on the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla and more. 

It will begin with the Q4 e-tron but Audi Australia Director Jeff Mannering hinted a smaller electric car could be waiting in the wings. 

“Maybe in the next couple of years, we’ve got a segment that’s below the Q4 and whether it comes or not is still in the air, but if you’re talking about volume with the current way the Government is going with NVES you have to get some volume in more efficient cars — not necessarily just BEVs — there’s a segment there we could have a car in.”

The logical place for a small electric car is in the Q2 space. The current combustion model went on sale back in 2016 and is overdue for replacement. 

Audi CEO Gernot Döllner told German outlet AutoBild about the project in April. "We will bring an additional electric vehicle into the A-segment in the medium term. It's a great entry-level model," he said, without dropping the ‘Q2’ nameplate. 

The car won’t arrive until 2026 and further details are scarce. It will miss out on the VW Group’s SSP architecture, with the MEB Entry architecture — to launch with the VW ID.2 and Cupra Raval — the most likely substitute. 

2025 Audi Q2

“I’m not saying [a smaller car] is coming or not coming. The Q4 is an important car for us because it is significant volume. The benefit of it coming a little later is that it’s got the new battery in it so the range is a lot better; the pricing is quite good,” said Mannering, drawing attention back away from the future vehicle. 

Mannering noted how lower prices were driving EV sales: “I think what Tesla did in the market was pretty successful. They’ve dropped their prices down now, they’ve got some issues that they’re dealing with.”

Being a premium marque, Audi is not looking to cut Tesla or BYD’s lunch but more sales is never a bad thing for a car company. 

2025 Audi Q4 e-tron

It is likely a production version of the Audi Q2 e-tron would sit below BMW’s iX1 (from $78,900 and measuring 4500mm long) and Mercedes-Benz’s base EQA 250 ($84,900 and 4465mm long) because the Q4 (4588mm long) is already a fairly natural size and price rival for those two. 

Instead, a smaller, cheaper offering such as a Q2 e-tron could stand as a unique offering among the premium German players, sitting closer to the Volvo EX30 which is already proving very popular. It measures 4233mm long and costs between $59,900-$71,290 before on-road costs. 

The aggressive pricing strategy has worked for BMW which sells the third most electric vehicles in Australia behind Tesla and BYD. So far this year, Audi sales are tracking down 13.1 per cent.