The carmaker has partnered up with E.ON, the Munich municipal utility company Stadtwerke München (SWM) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) for the project, which will see a fleet of 20 Audi A1 e-tron models take to the region's roads and around 200 new charging stations installed by the middle of next year.

The "eflott" project is part of the "Model Region Electromobility Munich" sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Transport. It will address a number of issues from the data transfer between the driver, vehicle and electric filling station to the power grid. It will also include a test of smartphones as the central interface for the driver.

Federal Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer said: 'Projects like these provide us with important insight into how to make electromobility a success, both in the city and in rural areas. In the Munich model region, we are providing approximately €10 million in funding for electromobility. This money is a smart investment in the future.

'Our goal is clear: we want to make Germany the lead market for electromobility and put at least one million electric vehicles on German roads by 2020.'