Audi This autumn e-tron small electrical SUV pushed to early 2024 arrival

Audi Australia has made some progress on securing the This autumn e-tron EV, with an area launch trying possible for early 2024.

That’s the excellent news. The dangerous information is the small electrical SUV might be about three years into its life cycle by the point it does arrive, having been revealed in April 2021.

That places Audi at a drawback contemplating it lacks a challenger to the more and more well-liked Tesla Mannequin Y, BMW iX1, Volvo XC40 Recharge, Lexus UX300e, and Mercedes-Benz EQA.

The Audi can even be crushed to market by the associated (MEB platform-based) Volkswagen ID.4 and ID.5, and the Cupra Born. The Skoda Enyaq is prone to arrives at an analogous time, in early 2024.

The belated This autumn e-tron and This autumn e-tron Sportback arrivals will give the four-ringed model an entry EV beneath the $150,000-plus e-tron mid-size SUV – one thing it acknowledges patrons are more and more asking for.

“It [Q4 launch] gained’t be subsequent 12 months. Manufacturing might begin subsequent 12 months – not will, might – however the automotive gained’t be launched. I might like it to be right here early 2024, that’s what we’re pushing for,” mentioned Audi Australia’s new managing director Jeff Mannering.

“It’s reliant on the capability of the manufacturing facility to have the ability to construct the automotive for us… there’s a variety of dialogue, we’re combating onerous, as a result of there’s a market.”

The European manufacturing facility was smashed by the chip scarcity in addition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which compelled Audi to briefly pause manufacturing of varied fashions. Demand throughout the continent can also be excessive, and provides are being prioritised nearer to house.

Mr Mannering mentioned the corporate was focusing extra typically on shortening the hole in time between a car’s launch in Europe and its eventual arrival in Australia.

He added the Albanese authorities’s push for a nationwide EV technique with a probable gasoline effectivity customary would assist with these negotiations, echoing feedback from his predecessor within the function Paul Sansom.

Mr Sansom, now head of the broader Volkswagen Group Australia, claimed in March this 12 months that he was assured the mixed manufacturers would finally turn into the main supply of electrical automobiles on this nation.

“We’re by a ways Australia’s main importers of European passenger automobiles and can turn into essentially the most important supply of electrical automobiles on this nation,” Mr Sansom advised the Inexperienced Constructing Council of Australia.

Need to know extra? Learn our current 2022 Audi This autumn e-tron Sportback overview from Angus MacKenzie.