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Salvage team boards burnt ship Felicity Ace off Azores, towing begins

LISBON — More than a week after a ship packed with around 4,000 vehicles, including Porsches, Audis, Lamborghinis and Bentleys, caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a salvage team managed to board the vessel on Friday and started to tow it to a safe location off the Portuguese Azores archipelago. In a statement, ship manager Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd (MOL) said the Felicity Ace remained stable, and the smoke that for days billowed from the vessel, adrift around 170 km southwest of the Azores, had stopped. The 22 crew members of the Panama-flagged Felicity Ace, which was carrying around 4,000 vehicles including Porsches, Audis and Bentleys from Germany to the United States, were evacuated last Wednesday, the day the fire broke out. Some of the vehicles are electric and their lithium-ion batteries have made the fire very difficult to extinguish, port officials have said. Previous attempts to board the ship to assess its condition and start preparing it for towing had failed due to the fire and rough seas. On Friday, the team was able to board by helicopter and the salvage boat Bear started towing the vessel to a "safe area off Azores," the ship manager said. It was not clear where exactly the vessel was being towed to. It was being escorted by two tug boats and another salvage craft equipped with firefighting gear, MOL said. Related video: Image Credit: Portuguese Navy (Marinha Portuguesa) via Reuters Green Weird Car News Audi Bentley Lamborghini Porsche Electric fire car fire shipping cargo ship

How Audi keeps it fresh in the design department

Audi was, even very recently, seen as a near-luxury brand, on par with niche if specific European automakers like Saab and Volvo. But early in the 21 st century, the four-ringed circus from Ingolstadt found a way to elevate itself to the level of its aspirational German rivals at Mercedes and BMW. While these brands were immersed in what we like to refer to as their Baroquecoco Period – a moment in which the exteriors of their cars gained bulges and, ahem, bangles, and their interiors failed to keep pace with the march of technology – Audi kept it simple. Its designs avoided the imperious Faberge gilding of Benz, or the Ghery-esque swoop and swoon of Bimmer. Instead, they were clean inside and out, with simple and elegant lines, comprehensible ergonomics, and subtle new signatures that were recognizable without being in any way overwrought. Customers, alienated by their rivals, flocked. Sales rocketed. And Audi became known as a formal/functional design leader – the Mid-Century Modern Architecture of the luxury vehicle world. But now BMW and Mercedes have taken note and corrected course. Both brands have discarded their dalliance with carbuncularity and are now, debatably, near the top of their game design-wise. Benz is delivering handsome stolidity not seen since the Bruno Sacco era of the Seventies and Eighties, and BMW has regained a grip on the kind of elegant sportiness characterized by Paul Bracq during the same time period. And the interiors of both brands are consistently on a level of craftsmanship, attention to detail, delight, and material selection and innovation once reserved for Bentley and Rolls. View 17 Photos This puts Audi in something of a design double-bind. First, its transaction price has escalated to the point where it lives in the same set as BMW and Mercedes. But now that those brands have caught up with (or perhaps even surpassed) the crisp Auto Union sensibility, how does it differentiate itself? "You have to have a clear design theme," says Frank Lamberty, Audi's exterior design director. "We define this as Quattro, because this is unique for Audi, this is our tradition. And Quattro means we have all the wheels powered, so we want to show that in our design. And this is different from a rear-wheel-drive car. We are coming from a front-wheel-drive platform, so everything is more balanced. Everything is in the middle, rather than leaned back. That is a clear proportion thing.

Audi A3 diesel fails independent emissions test in Europe

The best-selling model under Volkswagen's Audi division was emitted about double the legal limits of nitrogen oxide (NOx) levels for Europe, Reuters says, citing laboratory tests overseen by the European Commission's Joint Research Center (JRC) in August. The Audi A3 was found in two tests to emit about double the legal limit of NOx, though one of the tests had the A3 within the limits when the engine was cold. An Audi spokesman told Reuters that the A3 was independently tested to have emissions levels within the legal limit and that he wasn't aware of the JRC test results. Still, the findings are another example of how Volkswagen, Europe's largest automaker, can not seem to shed the issues surrounding the diesel-emissions scandal that broke last September. VW has been fined about $19 billion for equipping diesel cars with software that cheats emissions-testing systems. About 11 million cars were affected, including about a half-million vehicles in the US. In addition reaching a $15 billion settlement with US regulatory bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) earlier this year, VW has been fined $15 million by the South Korean government, which may impose more penalties because of allegations of false advertising. Audi is not the only VW unit to face further scrutiny. Germany's Transport Ministry and Federal Motor Transport Authority are taking a closer look at VW's Porsche division for potential emissions-cheating efforts, Bloomberg News recently reported. Additionally, the European Union is saying that at least seven of its member nations failed to provide sufficient oversight of automobiles' emissions-testing process, and may take legal action against Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Greece, and Great Britain, according to a separate Reuters article. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2017 Audi A3 View 125 Photos News Source: Reuters via Automotive News Europe-sub.req. Government/Legal Green Audi Volkswagen AutoblogGreen Exclusive Emissions Diesel Vehicles testing