Official: Audi India to launch A3 on August 7

Audi will launch the much-awaited A3 sedan in India on August 7, and will foray into a segment which is yet to be explored in the country. We recently drove the A3 and felt that the German manufacturer might have missed out on some of the features to confine price to affordable range, but the styling and over-all feel of the product has been kept ingeniously in typical Audi demeanor.

The A3 follows its elder sibling and is based on the Volkswagen’s (parent brand) popular MQB platform. With the A3, Audi has also introduced a new nomenclature for the India-spec cars. Under this new trend, the cars will be badged according to their output and not according to the mill under their hood. So, instead of 2.0TDI, the car will sport the 35TDI badge, whereas the more potent 1.8 litre TFSI petrol variant would be badged as 40TFSI.

Audi offers A3 with both petrol and diesel engine options. The diesel varinats comes equipped with a 2.0-litre, four-pot powertrain, rated at 143 bhp along with a peak torque of 320 Nm, enabling the sedan to cruise from 0 to 100 kmph within 8.6 seconds. While the petrol variants packs a 1.8-litre turbocharged engine, that churns out 180 bhp and 250 Nm of peak torque, and sprints within 7.3 seconds. A seven-speed S-Tronic transmission will be coupled with both petrol and diesel engines.

The A3 will be brought in India via the CKD (Complete Knocked Down) and will be assembled at the manufacturer's Aurangabad plant in Pune. Quite recently, Audi India commenced the local production of the A3 and rolled the first car out of its factory. This made the A3 sedan, the first such product from the brand that has made it onto the local production line, ahead of its launch.

Stay tuned to Cardekho, for more updates on A3 !