Audi R8 by Cargraphic

We’ve seen a couple of Cargraphic designs recently, most notably, their Corvette ZO6 and their Porsche Cayenne. Today we received pictures of a R8 they prepared with a new airlift suspension system and subtle bodykit. No power increases to report but hopefully the mix of practical additions should create a more balanced driving experience.

The white-on-white donor car hides the new airlift suspension unit that can elevate the front end by 72mm in just 15 seconds. The practical application here is that your front spoiler raises high enough to stop any damage to either the front spoiler or the suspension parts. At speeds above 50km/h, the car will automatically lower using its system of air bellows and a separate compressor.

The whole unit is TÜV certified and doesn’t restrict the owner to a specific choice of tyres.

Elsewhere, there’s a choice of 19 inch or 20 inch lightweight alloy wheels. A Cargraphic stainless steel exhaust setup is also fitted to this car. Cargraphic offers a number of body options including the spoiler seen in a couple of the pictures.

Audi Q7 Diesel, a 5,500-Pound Fuel Miser

The Audi Q7 3.0 TDI is an SUV to consider if your needs call for a three-row SUV and you want the best possible fuel economy and range for that kind of vehicle. Drive gently and this 5,500-pound Audi will reward you with almost 30 mpg. The EPA rates it at 17 mpg city, 25 mpg highway, 20 mpg combined. I got 27 mpg in a long weekend of driving, mostly highway miles. With its massive 26.4 gallon fuel tank, you'll go 600 miles between fill-ups. Highway cruising is where a diesel-engine vehicle is most at home.

The all-wheel-drive Audi Q7 doesn't have quite the bulky feel of a Cadillac Escalade. But the tall silhouette and massive Audi-signature grille, big enough to keep salmon from being sucked into a nuclear plant water intake, are a fair indicator of the official specs: 200.3 inches long and a weight of 2.75 tons. The 225-hp diesel is the slowest of the three Audi Q7s, although 0-60 mph in 8.5 seconds is still pretty good. As with most other diesel-engine cars and SUVs I've driven this year, it's virtually impossible to tell it's a diesel from the inside, except when starting up and driving away on cool mornings. From the outside you hear a slight clatter at idle and, if you sniff hard, you'd notice the slightest bit of diesel odor. As with many other low-emissions diesels, the Q7 injects urea into the exhaust stream to further purify the emissions. The tank is good for 7,500-10,000 miles, so it can be handled when you go in for an oil change.

Audi has plenty of technology features and options. An iPod adapter comes standard. Audi's MMI (multimedia interface) cockpit controller was for the longest time the smarter, easier-to-use alternative to BMW iDrive; the current iDrive has since leapfrogged Audi. (Expect a significant Audi enhancement in 2010.) If you order navigation ($2,500, a lot to pay), you'll see 3D topography with building shapes in some areas thanks to an nVidia processor, get real time traffic, and a 40-GB hard disk that reserves 10 GB for ripped CD music. A blind spot departure warning system is offered but not lane departure warning. The daytime running lights are LEDs, as are the taillights. There's no rear seat entertainment package offered, but you can add one easily through a mobile entertainment dealer.

2010 Audi A3 TDI named Green Car of the Year

The 2010 Audi A3 TDI was named Green Car of the Year at the L.A. Auto Show today, giving the Germans and clean diesel technology back-to-back wins.

The four-door hatchback, which has a base sticker price of $29,950, "offers it all," said Ron Cogan, publisher of Green Car Journal, which sponsors the annual award, praising the car's sporty performance and superior fuel economy.

The winner's "quiet, clean diesel engine delivers loads of low-end torque and a fun-to-drive experience, all with the functionality of a five-passenger hatchback," Cogan said.

The A3 TDI (which stands for turbo direct injection) has an EPA highway fuel economy rating of 42 MPG -- a 50% improvement over the gasoline-powered A3.

The other finalists for the award were the 2010 models of the Honda Insight hybrid, Toyota Prius hybrid, Volkswagen Golf TDI and Mercury Milan hybrid, the only nominee from an American automaker.

The A3 TDI is powered by the same engine as last year's Green Car of the Year, the VW Jetta TDI. Audi is owned by Volkswagen.

Consecutive victories by clean-diesel technology over gas-electric hybrid cars gave Johan de Nysschen, president of Audi of America, an opportunity to wag a finger at Washington policymakers who have fallen in love with hybrid and all-electric technology.

Nysschen called on politicians to define the fuel economy and environmental targets they want automakers to meet and then "let the industry pick the technology."

Diesel power trains, which are common in Europe, have been a tough sell in America, where consumers retain bad memories of the smoky, poor-performing diesel cars that roamed the nation's highways in the 1970s.

Nysschen said he believed American car buyers would slowly come around to the idea of diesel as a viable option in the hunt for higher mileage. He said an A3 TDI driven from New York to Santa Monica achieved fuel economy of up to 51 MPG at certain points on the trip.

99g/km Audi A3 Available To Order

A new Audi A3, officially the most economical ever, is available to order from this week. It's a special version of the 1.6 TDI, a car which was already impressive in that it had combined fuel economy of 68.9mpg and a CO2 rating of 109g/km.

The new model goes several steps beyond that. A combination of higher gearing, reduced ride height, better underbody aerodynamics and 15" wheels (one inch smaller than normal) with low-rolling resistance tyres means that this one has an official combined economy figure of 74.3mpg, while CO2 emissions have dropped to 99g/km. And that means the car is exempt from annual road tax.

Performance isn't affected: top speed is still 121mph, and the 0-62mph remains at 11.4 seconds as with the other 1.6 TDIs.

As well as being the most economical A3 ever, this is also the cheapest in the current range, with an on-the-road price of £18,005. It comes in only one version, with three doors, the standard trim level (there are no SE or S line equivalents) and a five-speed manual gearbox driving the front wheels.

2010 Audi S5 quattro Cabriolet

If any engine puts the final nail into the coffin of the mainstream V-8, it's the new 3.0-liter supercharged V-6 in Audi's 2010 S5 Cabriolet and S4 sedan. Rated 333 horsepower and 325 pound-feet, it's 20 horses shy of the 4.2-liter V-8's power number and its match on twist. We got a quick sampling of the new engine in the cloth-lid S5.

Our testing reveals the S5 ragtop is just half a second slower -- or less quick -- from 0-60 mph than the V-8 Mercedes-Benz SLK55 AMG and V-8 S5 coupe. In the quarter mile, it's 0.8 second slower than the Benz, 0.5 slower than the S5 hardtop. The Cabriolet's new engine seems poised for the new CAFE order, with 17/26 mpg EPA numbers, versus 16/24 for the S5 V-8 coupe with the S tronic and 14/22 for the manual coupe. (The S4 sedan with the supercharged 3.0 gets 18/27 mpg with the manual; 18/28 with S tronic.) Engine downsizing, even among expensive German performance cars, is the Next Big Thing, and Audi has trumped BMW, which is going back to a six-cylinder engine for the next M3.

The 3.0 TFSI features gas direct injection and the intercooled supercharger -- "T" typically means "turbocharged" in VW and Audi engines, but apparently SFSI doesn't seem sporty enough. While its sound is distinctively blown-V-6, Audi has tuned it to sound the part of a V-8 killer, but with a higher pitch. The brappy soundtrack is accentuated by back-pressure burbles during upshifts of the seven-speed S tronic dual-clutch transmission, when you get aggressive with the throttle.

2011 Audi A1 Latest Pictures

2011 Audi A1 and Justin Timberlake on LA photo shoot

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This has been a big week for the 2011 Audi A1. On Monday we saw the release of an official teaser for the upcoming premium compact, as well as confirmation that it will be unveiled at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show in March, and just yesterday Audi announced that entertainer Justin Timberlake would play the leading role in a new Internet campaign for the car starting in spring.

Today, an image of the new Audi A1 has surfaced online. The image shows Audi’s new brand ambassador Justin Timberlake alongside the car and was taken at a video shoot in the Los Angeles area.

Audi’s Electric E-tron Is Real

The gorgeous e-tron electric concept car Audi’s been showing off lately is more than a slick show car. It’s damn-near production ready and could be in showrooms by the end of 2011.

So says Dan Neil, the Pulitzer Prize-winning gearhead who writes for the Los Angeles Times. That lucky SOB spent some quality time with the e-tron and says it is “spectacularly cool and highly-evolved.”

We already knew the e-tron is spectacularly cool because we had to force ourselves not to drool when we saw it at the Los Angeles Auto Show. But Neil says the car, which Audi developed in just nine months, is remarkably refined. The alloy space frame is production-ready, all of the electronics — including the motion-sensing door handles — work and the instrument console is all but finished.

In other words, Audi is on track to have the e-tron rolling off the line within two years.

As for the car’s drivetrain, we already knew it sports four electric motors and a 53 kilowatt/hour lithium-ion battery pack (about 43 kw/hr is used). We also knew it puts down 313 horsepower (70 percent goes to the rear wheels), and we’ve all heard Audi’s inflated claim of 3,319 pound-feet of torque. Neil says the real-world figure is about 550. Sixty-two mph comes in 4.8 seconds. Top speed is limited to 155 mph.

What we didn’t know is the prototype, which has a carbon fiber body, weighs 3,527 pounds. Neil says Audi hopes to get the production model down to 3,200. The car promises to be a blast to drive, what with torque-vectoring all-wheel drive and regenerative braking.

2011 Audi A8 to Come Google-Ready

Unveiled in Miami just a few weeks ago, the 2011 Audi A8 will hit the U.S. market in late 2010. The latest word from Audi is that the European version will come stocked with in-car Googling. Several Google features will be integrated into the new multimedia interface, which is already one of the more intriguing aspects of the new flagship.

Audi plans on offering Google services beyond what are available from other car manufacturers such as BMW. Functionality will extend to Google-based mapping, service locating and Google Earth waypoints. Users will also be able to send locations from a computer to the car’s email address to streamline route mapping. Google services will be accessible via voice or the MMI’s touchpad.

Audi A3 named 'green' car of the year

Audi A3



Audi A3



Audi A3



Audi A3

Audi's latest environmentally-friendly sedan, launched in the United States just last month, took top honors ahead of the Toyota Prius, Honda Insight, VW Golf TDI and Ford's Mercury Milan hybrid.

The A3 TDI gets 42 miles (67 kilometers) to the gallon (3.75 liters) on the highway, following in the footsteps, or should we say tire tracks of the Volkswagen Jetta, which won last year.

Ron Cogan, editor of Green Car Journal, said jurors were impressed with Audi's direct injection turbo diesel technology which "achieved 50 percent better fuel efficiency than the gasoline engine A3 model without sacrificing anything."

Consumers warming to climate-friendly cars

Audi sold just over 500 A3 diesels in the US in November, its first month on the market, a figure that pales in comparison to the runner-up Toyota Prius, which sold 128,000 units this year.

But Consumer Reports magazine's senior automotive engineer, Jake Fisher, said he was confident that the car would sell. "There is demand for this type of vehicle, and I think it will do well", he said, despite the traditional aversion to diesel-powered automobiles in the US.

Green car winners are chosen by a panel of Green Car magazine editors, and invited jurors, who this year included car collector and comic Jay Leno, environmental activist, Jean-Michel Cousteau, legendary muscle car designer Carroll Shelby and the head of the Sierra Club environment group, Carl Pope.

Audi is bringing Sexy Back with Justin Timberlake!

Audi has signed on Justin Timberlake as its new ambassador! The ‘Sexy Back’ singer will play the leading role in the Audi A1 Internet campaign which will be launched in the first quarter of 2010.

“Justin Timberlake is an extraordinary artist. He manages to keep advancing his personal development while proving his abilities in different branches of the arts,” says Peter Schwarzenbauer, Member of the Board of Management for Marketing and Sales, Audi AG.

That statement is very true when you compare the Maggi-mee haired Justin back in his ‘N Sync days with the RnB artiste he is today. From squeaky boyband member to the hip beatboxer everyone wants to collaborate with, it’s amazing re-engineering.

“As a superstar he appeals to a young target audience that we’re particularly intent on exciting about the compact and efficient A1, which is superlatively well suited for city traffic,” adds Schwarzenbauer.

Audi also released some cool graffiti teasers for its upcoming baby, which you can download as wallpaper after the jump.

C teaser image revealed

Audi has revealed a teaser image of its Audi A1 - a rival to premium superminis such as the Mini.

The image is part of a teaser video where a graffiti artist spray paints an image of the car on to a wall.

The A1 will be revealed at the Geneva motor show next spring, before going on sale in the autumn. Prices are estimated to start at around £14,000.

Audi A1 - the clues we've seen so far
We have already been given plenty of clues to what the A1 will look like in the metal. The A1 Metroproject concept car was revealed at the Tokyo motor show two years ago, and a year later a five-door 'Sportback' version was shown at the Paris show.

Both of these concept cars were petrol hybrids, although the first production cars will be more conventional. While engines have yet to be confirmed, they will be from the existing VW line-up, which means the 1.2 TSI and 1.4 TSI turbocharged petrol engines look certain to feature. A hybrid will follow a year or so later.

Audi to test solar-power roof panels

Audi will have solar panels installed on the roof of its assembly plant in Germany, for practical testing of new photovoltaic technologies by Munich-based Green City Energy.

In the weeks ahead, photovoltaic modules will be installed over 11,600 square metres of the roof. The modules are expected to generate more than 1,000 MWh of electricity each year, comparable to the consumption of 220 four-person households, the company said.

Modules on the roof of the toolmaking shop, on a parking deck at the technical development centre, and a third location south of the plant will begin supplying the power grid in early 2010.

The company also plans to install another 8,700 square metres of modules in Ingolstadt, while discussions are under way to review other Audi sites in Neckarsulm. As early as next year, photovoltaic modules could cover a roof area of 33,000 square metres.

Audi e-tron: Electron Accelerator

It’s around seven in the morning on the Pacific Coast Highway. The sun rises over the hills and the sea gleams violet. An orange truck disgorges the possible future of the German sportscar. We are about to take our first test drive in the Audi e-tron.
It looks like an Audi R8 but there’s no roaring, bubbling exhaust note. Eerily, one does not hear anything. Someone says: “Look: it’s how the whole future will develop. Perhaps this is something to make an enthusiast forget the Ferrari 458 or, in this part of the world, a Corvette ZR-1.”



The sun is still rising on the 4.28-metre length of the Audi e-tron, revealing its red lacquer finish and causing the eye to dwell again and again on odd design details. Take the finely drawn face with its different-looking aluminum radiator grille and LED lights. It’s an R8, of course it’s an R8 – yet something about it suggests a new future. There’s an indefinable touch of Transformers, Battlestar Galactica or Darth Vader attracting the senses here.



Closer inspection reveals a flap, concealing the charging point with its red and green diodes. The flap itself, plus the doors, the side panels and the roof are all made of fibre-reinforced plastic indicating an ultra-light construction. Every detail suggests a new generation of automobile.



Inside the e-tron there are pedals for brake and power plus, reassuringly, there’s still a nice round steering wheel in there. Clinical instruments and touch-sensitive switches look different, however, and a press on the starter seems to do nothing. Then two round dials light up in the instrument panel and a leather-finished selector lever rises from the central console.



There is merely the sound of the automatic parking brake being released and we are away, heading south on the Pacific Coast Highway. The e-tron sits heavily on the road, this pre-production model weighing two metric tonnes. I am told that the standard model coming later will weigh approximately 1.6 tonnes.



Now we accelerate. There’s the sound of the wind but there’s no growl from the back. Instead, one senses the raw surface of the road as never before. It’s not just the lack of noise which makes it feel quick. It’s the fact that it really is quick – extremely quick, thanks to four electric motors giving a combined 313HP and a torque figure exceeding 4000Nm.

With virtually no sound, full acceleration makes one feel like Captain Future. To spoil the local Sheriff’s day, we knock off the speed dramatically. With combined electric and hydraulic braking force, the pedal feel is different but the stopping power is impressive.



Fully charged, there’s ‘juice’ for approximately one hour’s drive in this car but the standard model will have a realistic range of 240 kilometres, with top speed limited to 200kph (124mph) but 0-62mph in under five seconds. High speeds with electric cars get the batteries on their knees at an alarming rate, hence the restricted top speed. The Sanyo battery module, weighing 470kg and positioned ahead of the rear axle, contributes to a front:rear weight distribution of 42:58. Normal domestic recharging takes a maximum of eight hours but a 400-Volt supply cuts that to 2.5 hours.



Audi started work on the e-tron in January 2009 and this fully finished prototype is a one-off. At the Los Angeles motor show, a second car will be unveiled and late in 2012, following further extensive tests, a small series of cars will be produced. First there will be 10, then 100 and after that, perhaps 1000 cars. The electrical future seems unstoppable yet sometimes the future develops more slowly than expected. We shall see whether the e-tron bucks that trend.

Full-speed (sort-of) in the Audi E-tron

New Audi

Following its U.S. debut at the Los Angeles auto show, we got a chance to sample the battery-powered sports car along a scenic stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway.

The bright red show car is the same prototype our man Georg Kacher sampled in Europe, but has since seen its top speed lifted from a fast crawl to a more informative 55 mph. That’s still well short of the 125 mph promised for production, but was fast enough to appreciate the E-tron’s instantaneous torque, which we’re told amounts to about 150 pound feet to each rear wheel and 75 to each front wheel. That's down from dubious early reports of 3319 lb-ft, but is still impressive. For comparison, the R8 on which the E-tron is loosely based produces 317 lb-ft of torque at 4500 rpm in V-8 form, and sends 90 percent of it to the rear wheels. The carefully configured seat of our pants tells us the E-tron might get a jump immediately off the line, but would watch the R8 fly by as soon as its 4.2-liter V-8 took a deep breath.

Not surprisingly, the E-tron hardly excercises its R8-sourced suspension at 55 mph, and neither, Audi says, would it at 125 mph. For that reason, the production model will likely get lighter and less expensive components.

The E-tron introduces an entirely new interior design language for Audi, one that will likely inform other future models. That could mean more austere dash layouts with floating center consoles. The show car has an LCD rear-view screen as the batteries fill what would normally be the rear viewport, but production models will have to make do with only side mirrors.

Audi still isn’t sure how it will market the E-tron but is not likely to follow the Lexus LFA example and retain ownership of the cars. There might be a limited lease program in the first year followed by regular sales, depending on consumer response.

Audi sets 2010 sports car agenda

Audi's prototypes will not be back at Sebring in 2010.

Audi announced today its 2010 plans for factory sports car team Audi Sport Team Joest – and the news comes as a blow to the 12 Hours of Sebring, which is not in the cards for the company's diesel-powered prototypes next year. Instead, the German marque will focus its efforts on the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where three cars will be entered, and the new “Le Mans Intercontinental Cup” races, of which the American Le Mans Series' Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta will count as one round.

“We welcome greatly the fact that the Automobile Club de l'Ouest has announced the first international racing series for LMP1 vehicles,” said Audi motorsports boss Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. “We are convinced that this motorsport category, which is particularly attractive from the perspective of technology, has prospects for a great future and fits our times well.”

The inaugural Le Mans Intercontinental Cup will feature the 1000-kilometer race at Silverstone, Petit Le Mans and an event in Asia yet to be announced. Audi also plans also to contest the Le Mans Series 1000km race at Spa, Belgium, which the team will treat as a dress rehearsal for Le Mans, with three cars.

Meanwhile, Audi will maintain its prominent involvement in Europe's DTM series, with up to nine cars. The major change is that Tom Kristensen, who will fully focus on Le Mans-style racing hands over his seat to young Briton Oliver Jarvis.

"We are thus giving our youngest ‘factory' driver the chance to prove his prowess in a current DTM car," said Ullrich. "The performances Oliver has shown in his first DTM years at the wheel of a year-old A4 speak in his favor."

Audi e-tron sales to be limited to 1,000 units

Audi may not be positioning itself as a "green brand," but it's still putting a rather big toe into the environmentally-friendly waters of electric sportscars with its R8-based e-tron, which is reportedly headed for production in 2012.

As a refresher – as if you needed one – the e-tron debuted as a concept at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September with some truly impressive statistics: four separate electric motors with 230 kW (313 horsepower) and 4,500 Nm (3,319.03 pound-feet) of torque (sort of), which is enough to push it to 62 mph in a mere 4.8 seconds.

So, um... want one? The line forms at the rear, and you'd better not dawdle as Audi says its only planning to build 1,000 of examples. Naturally, pricing has yet to be set, but it's reportedly expected to be "above R8 levels." Duh. Regardless, with all those lithium ion batteries and their associated electronic gadgetry, we don't imagine that Audi plans to make much of a profit when it finally goes on sale in two years.