Audi reportedly has inked a deal to work with Japan's Sanyo on development of high performance batteries for a pilot hybrid project for the Volkswagen Group, Audi's owner.

The alliance could lead to Sanyo batteries and other electronic components being used in future Volkswagen group models, British on-line automotive journal just-auto.com suggests.

Volkswagen's own hybrid development program has been scaled down dramatically by chief executive Martin Winterkorn, who thinks the 2,000 euro ($3,092) additional cost to hybridize a vehicle is too steep.

At Audi, there are plans for a hybrid Touareg SUV and a hybrid Q7 crossover. The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which initially reported  the Sanyo deal, said the partnership could lead to hybrid technologies being used in Audi's passenger cars as well.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Audi sees "great opportunities" in electric vehicles and will offer battery-electric automobiles with no exhaust emissions within ten years, its top executive told a German weekly.
 
Chairman Rupert Stadler, in an interview with Welt am Sonntag published Sunday, said he expects diesel and battery technology to be a dominate force the automotive market in five to ten years.

"By then we will offer cars without exhaust emissions," Stadler said.

Asked if Audi was trailing domestic rivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW in the development of  batteries to power electric vehicles,  Stadler replied that he wasn't worried, that Audi's research capabilities are larger than those of its competitors.

Continue reading...

Only two days after introducing a diesel version of its TT sports car, Audi announced Thursday that it will be expanding the line with coupe and convertible TTs featuring gasoline-powered 1.8-liter TFSI (Turbocharged Fuel Stratified Injection) engines offering European driving cycle fuel economy of 35 mpg and 34 mpg, respectively.

The highly compact, four-cylinder direct injection engine weighs just 297 pounds yet produces 160 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque, Audi said. It also features various measures to reduce parasitic energy drain on the engine, including a demand-based oil pump.

Continue reading...

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

We had an opportunity recently to put a few hundred miles on an Audi Q7 TDI equipped with the company's European diesel -- almost the same system as will be available to U.S. buyers in January – and can happily report that if you've got the bucks and really need something that big, it packs a lot of wallop, is a joy to drive and delivers a pretty consistent 25 mpg.

That's about 66 percent better than the 4.2-liter V8 gasoline version of the big SUV can claim.

No Hybrid

On the sad side, Audi 's U.S. chief has told Automotive News that the company won't be bringing a mass-market hybrid version of its largest crossover to the States because things just won't pencil out with the dollar continuing to shrink against the euro (translation, Audi would have to charge too much in the U.S.).

The hybrid Q7 had been slated to launch here shortly after the diesel model goes on sale.

Johan de Nysschen, head of Audi U.S., said the company likely would sell a small number of the hybrid Q7s to commercial, or fleet, accounts in the U.S. , and hinted that the smaller Q5 crossover might be a better candidate for an eventual mass market U.S. hybrid.

Continue reading...

By Scott Doggett, Contributor

Volkswagen's U.S. sales will reverse a downward trend and soar more than triple to one million vehicles annually over the next 10 years, if all goes according to plan.

That would be the plan outlined by Stefan Jacoby, chief executive of Volkswagen Group of America, on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Aggressive marketing and growing demand for clean diesels would drive the sales, he said.

One million vehicles sold annually by 2018 would be an impressive increase from 2007, when the company sold 235,000 VWs and 94,000 Audis. It also would reverse a downward trend; in 2002, the company sold 338,000 Volkswagen brand cars in the United States.

Continue reading...

Challenge wants to encourage more cars like Audi's clean-diesel racer.

DETROIT -- The American Le Mans Series, already a showcase for diesel power and ethanol-blend fuel, will inaugurate a "Green Racing Challenge" this year encouraging automakers to put developing  environmental and fuel economy technologies to the test on the track.

Scott Atherton, ALMS chief executive, said at a press conference at the Detroit auto show that the series has formed a green racing coalition with the federal Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Society of Automotive Engineers International, to develop criteria for the Challenge.

Continue reading...

Egads! First there were only the econobox models: Honda's two-seat Insight and the first-generation Toyota Prius. Now there are more than half-a-dozen hybrid sedans and SUVs and more coming.

Even the luxury market is becoming crowded, giving dual meaning to the term "green car."

Toyota's Lexus brand kicked off the luxe hybrid segment with its Lexus RX 400h crossover SUV. That was followed by the LS 600h sedan. Coming soon are hybrids from Audi, BMW, Cadillac and Mercedes-Benz. Exotic carmaker Fisker Automotive will show its hybrid performance car next week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

And now comes word that Porsche plans a hybrid version of the upcoming four-door Panamera GT.

The gas-electric hybrid will use the same system as the Cayenne Hybrid scheduled to hit the market in 2009.

Porsche said the high-performance four-door will carry its electric batteries under the luggage area with the electric drive unit mounted between the engine and transmission.

It will operate as a two-mode hybrid, able to run either in all-electric mode for short distances, or in all-gas mode or with both systems engaged as a sort of electrically supercharged power plant..

Although several reports published last summer had Porsche introducing the hybrid version right away, the automaker said it plans to introduce the Panamera next year with traditional internal combustion power plants and will add the hybrid system at an undisclosed future date.

Can the gas-electric Ferrari be far behind?

________________
Image courtesy of Porsche Cars North America, Inc.

Although there's plenty of development work on alternative fuels and power plants going on in U.S. automakers’ R&D labs, the industry is consumed these days with fixing its collective financial woes and there's not much noise being made about advancing green technology. Not in the U.S., anyhow.

We likely won't hear too much about what's close to being market ready until the carmakers and the UAW complete their ongoing master contract negotiations and possibly not until the hype around January's Detroit auto show begins.

But Asian and European car companies, including European subsidiaries of both Ford and GM,  are stepping in to fill the environmental void, with a spate of clean diesels and gas-electric hybrids in the works. A lot of green goodies will be shown off at the 2007 Frankfurt Auto Show, which begins a two-day press preview on Tuesday.

Here's a look at what's on tap.

Continue reading...