The Audi A3 and its sporty derivatives - the S3 and RS3 - are slated for replacement post-haste, and in fact, Volkswagen's entry-premium brand just showed off the new 2021 A3 in five-door Sportback form earlier in the month. Here in the US, that car is expected to go on sale with a turbocharged 2.0L four-cylinder engine rated at around 240 horsepower, with a 48-volt hybrid system to bolster efficiency.

That just about sates our curiosity with regard to the basic A3, but what about the rest of the lineup? Car and Driver claims to have the lowdown on the S3, RS3, and the A3's forthcoming plug-in-hybrid variant.

According to Car and Driver, the new Audi S3 will pack roughly 300 horsepower courtesy of an up-tuned 2.0L turbo-four, while the 2.5L inline-five in the higher-performance RS3 will peak at around 400 horsepower, both numbers roughly equal to what the cars put out today. We wouldn't be surprised to see those numbers creep up as Audi nears the big reveal of the S3 and RS3, but suffice it to say that Audi has focused its attention on upgrading the suspension and quattro AWD system rather than fiddling with the engine tuning..

In the US, the A3, S3, and RS3 will solely be available in sedan form, but reportedly, that won't be the case for the plug-in-hybrid A3 e-tron.

On the contrary, the US-market Audi A3 e-tron is expected to be available as a Sportback only, with a sloping rear hatch in place of the typical flat decklid. That model is expected to deliver the same 240 horsepower or so as the regular A3, but using a turbocharged 1.4L four-cylinder and a single electric drive motor. That's substantially more than the outgoing e-tron's roughly-200 horsepower.

The Audi A3 and S3 sedan models are expected to start sales before the end of the year as 2021 models, followed shortly thereafter by the A3 e-tron and, subsequently, the range-topping RS3. Stay tuned as more info becomes available.