In spite of the high cost of diesel, Audi is anticipating the US passenger car market to be approximately 10-20% oil-burning in the next few years. Economic arguments to the side, Audi has announced its diesel product plans for the US in the near future. A 3.0 liter common rail V6 diesel engine, with 211 hp and 406 lb ft of torque is headed for the Q7 crossover and the new A5 coupe. In the A5, Audi claims it'll make 0-60 in 5.9 seconds. The A4 will also get this engine down the road. But in addition to the diesel V6, the Audi Q7 will also have oil-burning options of a V8 and V12. The V8 has 326 horses and 560 lb/ft of torque and Audi claims it will get 24 mpg combined. And if you really want to go the nose-heavy route, the diesel V12 with 500 horses and 737 lb/ft of torque will warp time and space as you hit 60 in 5.3 seconds. Since diesel fuel has suddenly shot up in price (oil manufacturers realized diesels get better mileage, and as such represented lower profit per mile?), Audi's right to argue the performance aspects of these engines rather than prioritizing their efficiency, which is still respectable considering the performance you'll get.
Find Reviews by Make:
It sure would be nice if Audi would offer an A3 TDI. I like the A3 and would love to get an A3 wagon, but I’m not buying one with a gas engine. The upcoming 2.0 litre TDI that’s coming in the Jetta would probably work well in it. A 3.0 litre TDI is still too thirsty, especially with higher diesel prices.
They have to talk about performance because big oelmotoren don’t really get that great mileage. Incrementally better than gasoline, but not astoundingly better. For that you have to go with a small engine and (largely) give up the performance. Mind you, the torque of the oil burners makes for fun low- & mid-speed driving; but you can rack up truly impressive MPG with a sub-2liter TDI.
I’d love to see a TT Convertible with the proven 1.9L TDI engine. Shed as much weight as possible from the chassis. Leave off the A/C. Give me an honest-to-god basic 5 speed manual and I’d be in heaven. I don’t need to drive any faster than say… 95 MPH anyway, and 99% of my driving is done between 35 & 75 MPH.
Here let me put it clearly: FUEL ECONOMY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN RAW PERFORMANCE.
I realize that may come as a shock to readers here, but the last two decades have seen a quantum leap in automotive engineering, all of it around reliability and performance, at the expense of fuel economy. The time is now (well, actually the time was about 5 years ago, but the industry was asleep at the wheel!) to change that focus to economy. Diesel is a great technology for that focus, as is hybridization.
In military parlance what Audi is doing by pursuing performance with Diesel is called “fighting the last war”.
–chuck
http://chuck.goolsbee.org
What’s the obsession with high performance diesels? Why not bring over the A4 2.0 TDI – it has enough power, plenty of torque and sips diesel. I thought the whole point of diesel was economy so why bring over the biggest and thirstiest engines first?
America’s simply too brand-boozled to buy an econoAudi. An A3 TDi (or even A4 TDi displacing 2L or less) are very, very unlikely to come over, as they’ll expect that sliver-of-a-sliver to go to VW, and I’d bet that they’re right.
I’d be interested in an A4 Avant 1.9/2.0 TDi quattro with a cloth interior, but I know it ain’t happening.
They have to talk about performance because big oelmotoren don’t really get that great mileage.
I’d say it’s the opposite. They are using large motors because they want their buyers to associate diesel with performance, not with economy. Audi markets itself as a technology-oriented brand, and diesel is being positioned to be aligned with their branding message.
Audi is a luxury brand, so its cars should not have an economy message. Efficiency is fine and performance is better, but economy as a sales message should be left to VW.
The ultimate agenda in their search for US conquest buyers is to compete with Mercedes, not with Toyota.
Why bother with diesel if it sucks as much gas as a regular engine? Dumb. Take advantage of its fuel efficiency, bring the proven, small diesels. This is pointless as planned.
Why bother with diesel if it sucks as much gas as a regular engine?
That’s not quite right. The diesels do get better fuel economy, when they are compared based upon a given level of performance.
For example, if you compare a Euro-spec 3.0 liter turbodiesel A6 Quattro with the 3.2 liter gas version, the diesel version gets about 35% better fuel economy. (Some of the fuel savings is due to the turbo, but you can guess that about 25% of the savings is due to the diesel.)
Or, in the alternative, you could get the 2.0 liter turbo gas motor, which would provide similar fuel economy to the diesel, but it would be slower. To get the same fuel economy, the gas engine loses performance.
I don’t expect much demand for diesels, but if anyone could make money pushing them, it should be the Germans. They won’t sell a lot of them, but with their large diesel customer base in Europe, it doesn’t cost them much to try.
For Audi vehicles, diesel prices should be compared to premium gasoline prices, not regular.
Folks are making bio-diesel for anywhere between 50 – 80 cents a gallon from recycled vegetable oils. I’m really looking forward to the date when we can use oil palm or algae for production of biodiesel, and then knock the socks off of the oil co’s. I’d love to have an Audi turbo diesel in my old 944.
have you ever driven one of those 6 cylinder turbo diesels? I’ve driven a decent amount of them in Germany and let me tell you. they’re great. I rented a 6 cylinder mercedes diesel and found it would spin dougnuts on dry pavement, pull you so hard into the seat you couldn’t touch the dashboard, top out at 160 mph, and that with 40 mpg. had similar performance with a VW passat, and Audi A4. In fact for a while I was starting to think the fuel gauge was broken. I was beating the piss out of this engine and the gauge wouldn’t go down. I love how the turbo diesels have the power from the low RPM,s. It does take some getting use to. In gas engines, you try to get to the top rpm’s to reach your fun power. the diesel has a very slight lag and then slams you back in yur seat, but you need to cut of the power and switch gear mid rpm cause you’ll only loose power after that. Learn to shift at mid rpm, and your gold
A few years back I emailed Audi and asked why they didn’t bring the performance diesels to American and they told me there wasn’t a market for them.
I would think there should be. sports car that gets similar mileage to a hybrid.
Granted the cost of diesel in the US is a total rip off. In Germany it was the same price as regular gasoline, (which was actually about $5 a gallon at the time).
In fact later I rented a mid power BMW gas model and wished I had the diesel feel back. Even the smaller turbo diesel engines have respectable power, but when you get into a 6 cylinder turbo diesel, you’ll be surprised