2010 Audi A5 Quattro Cabriolet Convertible 2-door 2.0l on 2040-cars

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The VW emissions carnage assessment with an upside

Bombs cause destruction. Even if they're intelligently guided and pinpoint, there's always collateral damage. The strange Volkswagen brew, which is still spontaneously combusting in plain sight, will result in aftershocks for years. And the professional end of the corporation's top leadership will not be the only casualties. Blows are striking shareholder confidence, the residual value of the cars involved, consumer confidence, and the German economy itself. A hard rain's going to fall elsewhere, too. Here are just four damage assessment areas. The High-Compression Past and Low-Compassion Future of Diesels Despite European and especially German manufacturers' high belief that diesel engines were a way to light-duty automotive salvation, VW's scandal started the last nail in the fuel's coffin. Regulations both in the U.S. and in Europe for particulates and nitrogen oxide (NOx) are getting much harder to meet, and this is at the very core of VW's deception. Even with the high-cost exhaust after-treatment systems, sky-high fuel pressure, and sophisticated electronics, the inescapable NOx realities won't be washable by technology in an affordable way. German engineering pride will have to work a real miracle to meet these looming regs and the stain of VW's scandal did the whole diesel movement no favors. Perhaps not so ironically, the E.U. adopted more stringent emission standards this year, which closely mimic the U.S. Tier 2, Bin 5 figures phased in for 2008. Indeed, when VW announced it was able to meet the stringent US NOx emissions standards in 2009 for its diesel engines without urea injection as an exhaust after-treatment, it was a particularly high point of engineering pride for the company. No other manufacturer had figured out how to do so. One Honda official at the time remarked that they had simply no idea how VW was achieving this feat and Honda couldn't come close. Well, neither could VW. On a macro scale, European cities are also starting to face government fines for air quality violations. This is forcing those cities to find various ways to cut smog-related causes like tailpipe emissions. In fact, Paris has gone to the length of restricting car use on a sliding scale when smog persists, while electric cars are free to roam. France's longer and larger plan is banning diesel fuel for light-duty transportation entirely. But why was there a frothy focus by the European manufacturers on diesels in the first place?

Audi A3 G-Tron offers big range, few emissions

Audi is exploring a variety of sustainable transportation technologies beyond the traditional diesel, hybrid, plug-in and electric options, including the compressed natural gas A3 Sportback G-Tron that debuted today at the Geneva Motor Show.
The most interesting thing about this rather innocuous-looking A3 Sportback is that when run on Audi e-gas, the car becomes completely carbon neutral, emitting no more CO2 than was chemically input in this special fuel's production. Audi has already broken ground on a new plant - powered by renewable energy, of course - that uses electrolysis to produce e-gas, which could then be made available through any natural gas distribution network.

Audi wants to tattoo your car with a new paint etching process

Those tribal stickers have sort of gone out of style, so Audi has developed a new technique that allows owners to have matte, tattoo-like images etched onto their cars. While initially available on the Audi R8 and R8 Spyder, the technique can be applied to any model, and it goes on after the component has been painted. The process is relatively simple. Audi places a template on the car with the desired design - like the Audi Sport logo in the image above - and then uses a special powder to basically sandblast the paint, roughening the surface of the clear coat. The result is a matt area with a depth of just a few thousandths of a millimeter, less than the width of a human hair, that's basically a permanent decal. Audi can currently handle images up to one meter square and will accept nearly any image that doesn't violate third-party copyrights, presumably excluding any obscene image as well. Just wait for someone to test the limits on that one. The cool thing about the process is that it can be applied at pretty much any point in the car's life. This means any vehicle is a candidate for customization and that an owner could purchase the car at a dealership and have the custom graphic applied afterward. Because the powder affects the paint surface, the image is more resilient than a wrap or sticker. The new option is limited to the side blades on the R8, but Audi will be extending it to other models in the future through its Exclusive program. And while it might affect the resale value of the car, it's a heck of a lot less painful than a tattoo. Related Video: News Source: AudiImage Credit: Audi Auto News Design/Style Audi Technology Convertible Coupe Performance paint customization