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.