2018 Audi Q7 on 2040-cars

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Audi A3 outselling Mercedes CLA 2 to 1 in its first 3 months on sale

The Audi A3 is on fire in US showrooms. Not literally of course, that would be horrible, and the situation we're referring to is a good thing indeed, as the Four Rings has a serious hit on its hands with the compact luxury sedan. Looking at just its first three months on the market, the entry-level model is outselling the Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class by nearly two to one.
The CLA was one of the hottest new cars of last year. Mercedes even called it the company's best launch in 20 years, but it sees as if that early sales performance has not been sustainable. According to Bloomberg, the CLA has seen its sales drop year-over-year in seven of the last eight months, and the new A3 came at just the right time to fill that void.
In June, Mercedes shifted 1,658 CLAs in the US, compared to 2,452 for the A3. The Merc has sold more units so far this year but only because the Audi sedan has only been on sale for three full months. With the two cars being relatively comparable as compact, front-wheel-drive, German luxury sedans, it appears buyers prefer the Four Rings over the Mercedes star, so far at least.

40+ cars that barely avoid the gas guzzler tax

The Gas Guzzler schedule, with mpg ratings and charges that haven't changed since 1991, lays out which fuel-swillers owe what to Uncle Sam.
I started thinking about the "Gas Guzzler Tax" - considerably less well known as The Energy Tax Act of 1978 - when I was driving Dodge's new Challenger SRT Hellcat last week. Unsurprisingly for a car that can burn 1.5 gallons of gas per minute at max tilt, theoretically able to empty a full tank of premium in about 13 minutes, the Hellcat will be subject to the Gas Guzzler Tax schedule when it goes on sale.

With increased range, Audi R8 E-Tron revving up for production. Maybe

As Tesla Motors proved mightily in 2013, an expensive EV with a long range can sell quite nicely, thank you very much. Perhaps Audi was taking notes, since its all-electric R8 E-Tron's on-again/off-again odyssey appears to be on again, according to UK's Autocar, citing Audi's Urlich Hackenburg. The model is near the approval stage for production, and the key to the green-light is the fact that its single-charge range has been almost doubled to 250 miles. The R8 E-Tron gained kudos in these parts last June by turning in a rather brisk 8:09 time around Germany's Nurburgring track, a record for a production electric vehicle (check out the really quiet video here). Still, plans for the 376-horsepower model, which has two electric motors and was first shown off at the Frankfurt Auto Show in 2009, had been put on the proverbial blocks largely because of a relatively short single-charge range of about 150 miles. Then word came out last spring that Audi would produce maybe 10 units before reports from Australia's Drive late last year indicated that plans for potentially broader production were being resuscitated.