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Ram and Alfa Romeo top J.D. Power study of best automaker websites

Imagining a new car can be terrific fun, especially if the new car is an Alfa Romeo. So say the fantasy engineers at the J.D. Power agency, who’ve found that Alfa and Ram, sister brands under the Stellantis umbrella, offer potential buyers the most attractive consumer websites, which are often their first viable encounter with those vehicles. Power found that those marques lead the mass market and premium categories in its twice annual Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study. In the premium segment, Alfa Romeo led with 755 points, up six points over BMW, 10 points ahead of Infiniti, 14 points past of Jaguar, and 18 points up on Porsche. By contrast, Volvo and Audi trail the pack with 689 points, and are behind Genesis (699 points), Tesla (720), and Cadillac (721), all of which perform worse than the premium segment average of 724 points. The summerÂ’s study showed that in the mass market segment, Ram leads with an impressive 735 points, which puts it six points ahead of GMC, seven points atop its stablemate Jeep, eight points beyond Subaru, and 22 points ahead of the industry average. Volkswagen finished dead last among mass market names, but only one point behind Ford, 684 to 683 out of a possible 1,000. Segment average, as noted, was 713 points. “Website satisfaction can be volatile, and automotive websites are not immune to changing preferences,” said Jon Sundberg, director of digital solutions at J.D. Power. “However, manufacturers have shown to be very agile when it comes to website design and ensuring their sites meet modern standards, more so than many other industries, as exemplified through the study data.” Marketing/Advertising Alfa Romeo Audi BMW Ford Volkswagen

Audi joins the car-sharing party with Shared Fleet

Seeing the success Zipcar and Daimler's Car2Go, more auto manufacturers are cutting out the middleman and jumping into the car sharing business. General Motors, Ford, and BMW have all introduced or announced their own programs. And now Audi has now thrown their hat into the ring with its Shared Fleet program. Like its competitors, Shared Fleet will be accessed through an app. The fleet consists of a mere three all-new and fully loaded 2017 Audi A4s and will be rolled out in a small pilot program in Durham, North Carolina. Audi plans a nationwide fleet for sometime in 2017. Through the app, customers will be able to locate and unlock vehicles. Pricing is currently unknown, but it is likely to be based off the time used, not the distance driven. The pilot program will be based at American Underground, a technology incubator in North Carolina. This will give Audi the chance to get the program into the hands of tech savvy users who have likely used competing programs. More than 700 employees at 200 companies are based at the facility. This isn't Audi's first foray into the car rental business. They previously invested a large amount into Silvercar. They also operate Audi on Demand in San Francisco, a similar program to Shared Fleet. With Audi on Demand, users can drop cars off at their destinations. Related Video:

2017 Audi RS5 DTM racer is a smorgasbord of carbon-fiber wings

Along with the reveal of the new RS5 coupe, Audi took the wraps off its corresponding DTM racer here at the Geneva Motor Show. This concurrent debut strategy is completely by design. "For the first time, we developed a new DTM car in parallel with the production model. This underlines once again how closely motorsport and production work together at Audi," said head of Audi Motorsport Dieter Gass. As much as Audi would like you to believe its DTM racer shares a lot in common with its production RS5 ... well, it doesn't. Gone is the new biturbo V6, and in its place is a 4.0-liter V8. It's not a Quattro – all DTM racers are rear-wheel drive – and the chassis is a carbon-fiber monocoque. And, of course, there is an extremely complex set of wings, vanes, and splitters that you'd never see on a production car. View 15 Photos Interestingly, the 2017 DTM regulations actually reduce the total amount of downforce allowed. That ought to mean slower cars, but Audi promises the opposite is true, due to sticky new tires and a 4.0-liter V8 engine tuned to deliver "more than 500 horsepower." That's more than last year, thanks to changes made to the air intake and cooling systems. Audi won the Constructor title in DTM last year with the old RS5 racer, so the pressure is on to follow that feat again in 2017. We'll find out soon enough how good the new car is – the 2017 DTM season starts on May 6 in Hockenheim. Related Video: