2006 Audi A8 Quattro Base Sedan 4-door 4.2l on 2040-cars

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World Car of the Year finalists announced

To say the 2014 Geneva Motor Show was packed full of news is an understatement as big as the show's home at the Palexpo convention center. Despite everything that we were able to cover during this year's show, there's still more coming out of Switzerland, including the announcement of the finalists for the 2014 World Car of the Year Awards.
We reported on the original list of finalists over three weeks ago, and now, that initial list has been pared down to three finalists for each of the five awards. The finalists were announced at a press conference by frequent Autoblog contributor and co-chair of the awards, Matt Davis (above).
The finalists for the overall title of 2014 World Car of the Year are the Audi A3, the BMW 4 Series and the Mazda3. The World Luxury Car of the Year will be either the Bentley Flying Spur, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class or the Land Rover Range Rover Sport, while the Performance Car of the Year will be awarded to the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, the Ferrari 458 Speciale or the Porsche 911 GT3 (which, um, yeah...).

Audi creates new diesel fuel from carbon dioxide and water

What if you could power cars of the future with pollution created by the cars of the past? That's what German automaker Audi is hoping to achieve by creating a new synthetic fuel using renewable energy to turn water and carbon dioxide gas into a new kind of fuel they call "e-diesel." The new diesel is being produced at Audi's pilot plant Sunfire in Dresden, Germany. Only a few gallons were created, which the German Federal Minister of Education and Research Johanna Wanka put into her Audi A8 to prove the fuel's bonafides. The base fuel is known as "blue crude" and begins from a green source. Audi uses electricity from wind, water or solar power sources to separate hydrogen from oxygen in water. The hydrogen is then mixed with carbon dioxide which has been converted in carbon oxide. The blue crude is then further refined to create the e-diesel. The carbon dioxide is currently supplied by a biogas facilities, but some of that CO2 was captured from the air. "The engine runs quieter and fewer pollutants are being created," says Sunfire CTO Christian von Olshausen. The fuel can be combined with conventional diesel fuel, as biodiesel fuels already and would be competitively priced against regular diesel, according to Gizmag. Sunfire can produce about 42 gallons of e-diesel a day. That seems like barely a drop in the bucket in terms of Europe's energy use, but Audi is ready to commercialize the technology with plans to expand production with a bigger facility in the future.

Audi planning A9 electric vehicle to challenge Tesla

It looks like we have another "Tesla Fighter" on our hands. Various higher-end automakers have announced plug-in luxury sports sedans that would likely take on the California-based electric-vehicle maker, and Audi now appears to have joined that group. The badge is A9, and it may be available to the public by the end of the decade, UK's Autocar reports. The Audi A9 E-Tron could be a beast. The car will deliver 429 horsepower via three electric motors – two driving the front wheels, one driving the rear. The sedan will be equipped with a 95-kilowatt-hour battery that will enable a 310-mile single-charge range (on the more generous European driving cycle). Lots of parts and features will be shared with the battery-electric SUV Audi is also planning. Where it really gets fun is the prospect of the sedan having "torque vectoring," in which power can be shifted from side to side in order to boost handling. Additionally, the car could have a wireless, inductive charging option as well as an auto-parking feature for positioning over the floor-mounted charging module. No word on how this car will be priced, but we're guessing quite high. Audi CEO Rupert Stadler has gone on record saying that the German automaker wants to have three all-electric models available to the public by 2020, though hasn't said anything specific about a high-end battery-electric sedan that would be geared to take on the Tesla Model S. The company did introduce its E-tron Quattro concept last year, though, and Audi has said it aims to have as much as 25 percent of its sales be of the plug-in variety by 2025. There's a chance for that if the A9 e-tron is as enticing as it appears to be. Related Video: