The official is Federal Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer, who took the vehicle for a spin in Bonn. He was accompanied by Audi's head of Electric Mobility Strategy, Franciscus van Meel. Using the A1 test drive, the minister reassured Germans the country will be at the front of the markets to adopt electric vehicles in the near future.
“My objective is clear: I want to make Germany the leading market for electric mobility and put at least one million electric vehicles on German roads by 2020,” the minister said. “The Federal Ministry of Transport is therefore funding electric mobility in eight model regions under real-world conditions.”
Last week, Audi announced it will deploy a fleet of 20 A1 e-trons on the streets of Munich, to be tested. All models will hit the road by the middle of next year, supported by 200 new charging stations which will be installed in the area by E.ON and SWM.
The goal of the trial is to determine factors like data transfer between the driver, vehicle, electric stations and power grid, as well as a test of smartphones as the interface for the driver.
“We are launching the fleet project in Munich with an innovative, all-round technical concept,” van Meel added. ”The A1 e-tron is a bona fide electric car with four seats; it has a full-sized trunk space, just like an Audi A1 production vehicle, and a range extender, meaning that customers will still be mobile even when the battery capacity is depleted.”
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