Audi Urban Concept

Audi is to be commended for avoiding the use of the word “mobility” in describing the Frankfurt-bound Urban concept. That oft-employed term has a way of reducing motoring to a means of getting from place to place, something with which the final portion of this publication’s title conflicts. Audi’s latest future-car vision promises to continue to involve the driver in the process, but do it in a smaller, lighter, more maneuverable way. And it’s electric, of course.

Audi bills the Urban concept as “a completely new kind of concept car,” but it brings to mind other hyper-efficient VW pods from the recent past, namely the Up!, as well as the L1 and XL1 “1-Liter” cars. Those and the Messerschmitt KR200.

In this Audi, two passengers sit in a fighter-jet-looking cockpit, complete with a rollback canopy in place of doors. The chassis is made of carbon fiber, into which the seat buckets are molded; the steering wheel and pedals adjust to the driver. The seats are staggered, as in the XL1, to afford a little more shoulder room in the narrow vehicle. Twenty-one inch wheels stick out from the body and are covered by cycle fenders with built-in LEDs.

Unlike the turbo-diesel 1-Liter concepts, the Urban deals in Audi’s not-yet-realized electric promise. The vehicle itself isn’t billed as an e-tron (it doesn’t quite have the stun factor of the early e-tron concepts), but it does employ two electric motors that carry that branding. A lithium-ion battery pack serves as the power supply.