2011 Audi A3 2.0 Tdi Hatchback Leather Sirius Alloys S-line Audi Care & Warranty on 2040-cars

Auto blog

NHTSA awards Audi A3 and S3 sedans five stars

The Audi A3 and S3 sedans aced the New Car Assessment Program tests run by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, each scoring five stars overall. The A3 sedan adds this latest five-star rating to its Top Safety Pick+ award bestowed upon it by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety earlier this year, and Audi says it's the only Euro premium luxury compact to do that double. The only place either car dropped a single star was for a male driver in the frontal barrier test and in the rollover test. It's clear from the lengthening list of top marks – and its list of safety technology – that it's among the safest sedans you can buy. Featured Gallery 2015 Audi A3: Review View 36 Photos News Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [1], [2] via Audi World Government/Legal Audi Safety Sedan crash test audi s3

2017 Audi Q7 Second Drive

One morning, I'm driving down the Malibu coast, top-down in a two-seat sports car. Twelve hours later, I'm on a straight road, in traffic, and piloting a seven-seat SUV. I think this is how new parents feel. There's no other word but "parental" to describe how three-row crossovers, like this 2017 Audi Q7, make me feel. Whether it was the Honda Pilot that was actually kind of tossable, or the plush Kia Sorento, one glance in the rear-view mirror at five headrests makes you wonder if someone isn't waiting for you outside an elementary school. The Q7, however, has always been a luxury car first. And this second-generation model is crammed with technology and convenience features to make life more effortless, as if it was designed for a person who lives in Bel Air but also must take the kids to horse-riding lessons on the one weekend it rains in Southern California. Autoblog already tested a European example, but I'm now getting the chance to finally drive it Stateside. When it comes to the Q7's appearance, I always seem to have a minority opinion. The old one looked like a bus when plenty of people said it looked beautiful. This new one has been widely criticized for looking like a wagon, but I don't see a lot wrong here. At some angles, it's reminiscent of the old 5000 Avants from the '80s – probably not a coincidence, since the Q7 is Audi's most prestigious wagon right now. Even Audi admits it pulled from the '80s with styling cues along the rear quarter panels and the ever-larger "Quattro" badges. While the shape grows on you, it isn't going to stop people seeing it and thinking it's a Q5. The new Audi Q7 has an incredible sense of elegance about it. The most ambitious design touches are the arrows in the LED lights, front and rear, but they're ultimately dwarfed by the size of the car. What's more, the string of white, silver, and gray cars on hand at our test aren't exactly striking, and the optional 20-inch wheels are boring in design. You could also call this "quiet luxury." Or perhaps stately. The new Audi Q7 has an incredible sense of elegance about it, never feeling ponderous like a truck and always feeling secure like a large luxury sedan. As the first application of the Volkswagen Group's MLB Evo platform, it really is a large luxury wagon. Which is the exact image the company seems to be running from.

Audi CEO says brand's EVs are almost as profitable as its other cars

After, oh, a hundred years or so of building vehicles primarily powered by internal combustion engines, automakers around the world have been and still are pumping billions of dollars into the development of electric vehicle technology. Everything from platforms and batteries to motors and the software to control it all requires untold hours of development, and that takes time and money. Fortunately, it's not going to take long for that massive investment to start paying off, at least according to Audi CEO Markus Duesmann, who told Reuters in an interview that "The point where we earn as much money with electric cars as with combustion engine cars is now, or ... next year, 2023. They are very even now, the prices." As a brand, Audi contributed more than a quarter of overall profit for the massive Volkswagen Group, which has such powerhouse brands as Volkswagen and Porsche among others. Under the Audi umbrella are Lamborghini, Bentley and Ducati, and it seems those high-end branches aren't going anywhere, at least for now. "These brands ... are very valuable very profitable brands, where we can even expand the synergy level in the future," Duesmann said in the interview. "There are no plans whatsoever to get rid of them." Despite the overall profitability of the brand, the ongoing global chip crisis is causing headaches. "We had a very strong first half in 2021. We do expect a much weaker second half," said Duesmann, who added, "We really have trouble." In fact, so serious is the trouble that the brand is forced into "a day-to-day troubleshooting process" to limit the chip-shortage damage. The good news for the automaker is that Audi has been able to boost its profit margin from 8% prior to the pandemic in 2019 to 10.7% in the first half of 2021. The bad news is that various chip shortages aren't expected to get a whole lot better over the rest of the year. Related video: