Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the city car segment and utilize the same 3-door hatchback body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. Both the engines are Volkswagen-engineered . The first one has a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 82hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 105hp one.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Beetle offers a considerable difference of 20% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi, as well as Volkswagen, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Audi A1 rank it on average as 1.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

Volkswagen is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 180 kilometers per hour, 3km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Audi A1, averaging around 4.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (67 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 29% difference compared to Beetle.

Volkswagen is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, Beetle offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Volkswagen being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Volkswagen. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.