Audi is planning a huge expansion of its e-tron electric range over the next five years – and now a senior official at the firm has admitted to Auto Express that this wider range will stretch to a small car based on the VW Group’s entry-level EV platform.

Known as MEB Entry, the architecture was revealed at the VW Group annual conference last spring. It’s designed to support vehicles of around four metres in length, about the same as a Polo or an Audi A1, while keeping down costs sufficiently for these models to be able to sold from around €20,000 (£18,000).

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Responsibility for the project – which is due to deliver its first model by the end of 2022 – has been handed to SEAT and its chief engineer Axel Andorff. The focus on cost-cutting has led to speculation that the platform will be restricted to cars from VW, Skoda, SEAT and a Chinese sub-brand.

However, speaking exclusively to Auto Express, Audi’s board member for product marketing, Fermín Soneira Santos, said that the premium brand intends to use MEB Entry as another element of an extremely broad EV portfolio – everything from supermini-sized models up to the e-tron GT super-saloon, which is based on the running gear of the Porsche Taycan.

When asked if Audi is involved in the MEB Entry project with a view to launching a car based on it, Soneira Santos told us, “It is on our horizon, yes. It’s not yet designed, but yes, we have a chance to have cars on MEB, maybe tomorrow on MEB Entry, then also the e-tron GT. We have so many different platforms to choose from and where we can have input into.”