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2015 Audi A3 TDI Challenge

I officially gave up after 758 miles. The 15 or so miles leading up to this decision were spent in the right lane of Southern California's I-8 freeway, hazard lights blinking, climbing uphill at just over 40 miles per hour. After two days of sweating to the oldies (okay, a mix of SiriusXM Classic Rewind and First Wave), I had covered those 758 miles in a 2015 Audi A3 TDI on one tank of diesel fuel. And when I say sweating, I mean it quite literally. In order to maximize fuel efficiency, my co-driver and I kept the air conditioning off, even when the direct sunlight in the California desert had outside temperatures hovering around 90 degrees. I had been doing this hypermiling exercise for two days, the car was getting stinky, and I was ready to hear the sweet "thhhhhhhwack" of satisfaction that would finally come from peeling my sweat-soaked self off the A3's leather seat. Sexy, I know.
Audi had challenged me to drive 834 miles from Albuquerque, NM to San Diego, CA, on just one 13.2-gallon tank of diesel fuel. If you believe the EPA's highway fuel economy rating of 43 miles per gallon, this means I should have sputtered to a stop after 568 miles. But I went a grand total of 758 - that's 59.4 mpg - and I could have kept going. In fact, two teams made it the full 834 miles on their one allotted tank of fuel. That's over 63 mpg. That's twenty miles per gallon better than EPA estimates.
The TDI Challenge took me through three states over the course of two days, and the 834-mile journey wasn't just a simple highway cruise. I negotiated uphill climbs, long series of involving switchbacks through the mountains and elevations that ranged from 220 feet below sea level to nearly 8,000 feet above. I learned that super-crazy-efficient driving like this an incredibly challenging game that takes serious skill. But I also learned that if you're going to attempt to stomp all over the EPA's numbers, the Audi A3 TDI is one heck of a car for the journey.

Audi Traffic Light Assist helps you hit every green light

Before taking a ride in Audi's impressive Piloted Driving A7, we took a short spin up and down the Las Vegas strip to check out a smaller, but intriguing piece of Audi driver assistance technology called Traffic Light Assist that promises to help drivers make every green light.
Using both live and predictive data beamed into the vehicle's navigation unit via onboard wifi, TLA doesn't need a single camera to tell you when the light is going to change. Local data sources provide information about traffic light patters, and the in car system uses that data and the motion of the car to predict exactly how long it'll be until the green light goes red.
In practice, the system shows a traffic light icon in the central display (a head-up display would be a nice option), along with a countdown timer that reads the number of seconds before a light changes from red to green. Additionally, the system corrects (nearly instantly in our demo) for changing lanes and resultant changing signals; changing a straight-through traffic lane to a left-turn lane and signal, for instance.

Meet the first of four Audi A4s coming to our long-term fleet

Yes, you read that right, this is the first of a quartet of A4s we'll be looking at over the course of the year. We're kicking things off with an Audi A4 Premium Plus sedan, and we'll be looking at other iterations of the A4 line later on: the A4 Prestige, Allroad, and S4. What we hope to do is provide you with a thorough examination of each variation, and hopefully give you some guidance on what's worthwhile and what isn't. But first, let's introduce you to the A4 Premium Plus. What we got The A4 Premium Plus is the middle child of the standard A4 line, fitting between the entry-level Premium and the top level Prestige. Stepping up to the Premium Plus adds 18-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, an S Line body kit, Bang & Olufsen sound system, parking sensors, aluminum window trim, and heated power seats with memory. The model we received from Audi has a number of upgrades that bring it quite close to the Prestige trim level. Most notable is the Technology package, which adds the Audi Virtual Cockpit instrument panel, which replaces the physical gauges with a big LCD screen. It also comes with rear cross traffic alert. A First Edition package was added, too, which adds cooled sport seats, a three-spoke steering wheel, and unique wheels and aluminum interior trim. Our favorite part, is the sport package, which adds sportier suspension, a black headliner, and the aforementioned sport seats. What we skipped Really, we didn't skip much here – this particular A4 Premium Plus is pretty loaded. The only packages not included were the Cold Weather package, which includes heated rear seats and steering wheel, and wheel and tire options. The heated steering wheel isn't necessary since winter is almost over (at least we hope). The cost of these packages added up fast, too. Moving up to the Premium Plus trim over the standard Premium added $3,800. The Technology package was $3,250, the First Edition package was $1,100, and the Sport package tacked on $750. Along with the white paint at $575, our Audi has over $9,000 in options. That brought our tester up to $49,825 from a base MSRP of $40,350. We like everything that's been added. If we were to pick packages we could live without, though, we'd probably pick the Technology and the First Edition packages. As slick as the LCD instrument panel is, there's nothing wrong with physical needles and dials.