2014 Audi A4 on 2040-cars

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Autoblog Podcast #394

Episode #394 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Steven Ewing, and Michael Harley talk about the possibility of a supercharged Dodge Viper, the Chevrolet Silverado Rally Edition, the newly released supercharger kit for the Honda CR-Z, and rumblings of an Alfa Romeo 6C. We start with what's in the garage and finish up with some of your questions, and for those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Check out the rundown below with times for topics, and you can follow along down below with our Q&A. Thanks for listening! Autoblog Podcast #394: The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience. Topics: Supercharged Viper Chevrolet Silverado Rally Edition Honda CR-Z Supercharged Alfa Romeo 6C In The Autoblog Garage: 2014 Ford Fiesta SE 2015 Cadillac Escalade 2015 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro 2015 Audi A8 L TDI Hosts: Dan Roth, Steven Ewing, Michael Harley Runtime: 01:32:30 Rundown: Intro and Garage - 00:00 Supercharged Viper - 44:25 Chevrolet Silverado Rally Edition - 55:19 Supercharged Honda CR-Z - 01:00:52 Alfa Romeo 6C - 01:07:29 Q&A - 01:13:41 Get the podcast: [UStream] Listen live on Mondays at 10 PM Eastern at UStream [iTunes] Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes [RSS] Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator [MP3] Download the MP3 directly Feedback: Email: Podcast at Autoblog dot com Review the show in iTunes

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

Audi celebrates diesel milestone with triple-charged RS5 TDI concept

Diesels are typically slower than their gasoline counterparts, but leave it to Audi to turn that notion on its head. After dominating Le Mans and the international endurance racing scene under diesel power for the better part of a decade, the German automaker toyed with the idea of an oil-burning R8 for the road and ultimately made its first performance crossover a diesel. It's made the letters TDI a battle cry, and now it's yelling even louder with the RS5 TDI concept.
Set to be unveiled in a couple of days at the Leipzig Auto Show to celebrate 25 years of the TDI engine, the concept ditches the gasoline-burning 4.2-liter V8 in the production RS5 in favor of a 3.0-liter V6 twin-turbo-diesel with an electric supercharger added on to combat turbo lag. Output comes in at 385 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque, which means that while it has 65 fewer horses than the gasoline model, it packs a staggering 236 lb-ft more torque.
The result of the triple-charged madness is a 0-62 time around four seconds flat, trumping the 4.6 seconds for the road-going model. Top speed, of course, is electronically limited to 155 miles per hour, which is a bit of a shame because we bet it'd be a kick to pass a Porsche on the Autobahn in a diesel, now wouldn't it?