Audi makes it official: A2 returning as A1 and Q2 replacement

A2 will make its comeback later this year after going out of production due to poor sales as a result of a high price tag in 2005. Picture: Audi Rumoured on and off as making a possible comeback, Audi has now officially confirmed the revival A2 as its incoming new entry-level model. Set to make its world debut later this year, the A2’s return after a 21-year hiatus will, however, be different from the original that lasted from 1999 to 2005.

Whereas the first generation had been motivated by petrol and diesel engines, the new A2 will adopt the e-tron suffix, thereby making it an EV. At the same time, it will become a crossover instead of the radical all-aluminium five-door hatch it originally was Teased by a concept shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show 14-years ago, the A2 will simultaneously succeed the A1 and Q2 the Four Rings confirmed last year won’t live on for a second generation. Back in 2022, then Audi boss, Markus Duesmann, hinted that both were living on borrowed time as the brand no longer wanted a presence in the lower premium segment.

“We have decided not to build the A1 anymore, and there will be no successor model from the Q2 either,” Duesmann told Germany’sHandelsblatt. “We will limit our model range at the bottom and expand it at the top.” Early last year, Ingolstadt’s current CEO, Audi CEO Gernot Döllner told Britain’sAutocarthat production of both will end in 2026. Contradicting Duesmann’s claims about a segment exit, though, Döllner said “we will have models in the lower A-segment”.