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Control your Audi with your Apple TV, if you want to

Not to dash your hopes right up top, but this isn't a way to remotely drive an R8 from the comfort of your living room, or even summon it from the garage. Also, you'll need the new fourth-generation Apple TV (and a real TV hooked up to it) as well as a 2017 A4 or Q7. What Audi is offering is basically a version of the Audi MMI connect app distilled for the streaming media box. Things you can do include locking and unlocking the car, setting it to heat up or cool down before you hop in, and viewing the status of the car. (No screenshot was available from Audi, so you're looking at the iPhone version of the app up top. Just imagine it larger and more horizontal.) Who's it for? People who have the latest Apple TV, a new Audi, and would rather control the latter with the former on a big screen than a smartphone. In other words, we're not sure. We do wager that there's a decent amount of overlap between Audi drivers and tech early adopters, so someone will get excited by this. And since the new Apple TV is based on iOS, it probably wasn't too tough to port the iPhone version of the app over. Like a lot of what we're seeing at CES this week, this is likely a small step in the direction of increasing connectivity between all of the digital stuff in our lives and our cars. We'll get more excited when the family flatscreen turns into a live window of what your car is looking at. But also terrified.

Audi diverting a third of R&D budget to electrification

Companies make promises all the time. We'll do X by Y. The new A will be our biggest seller in B. You know the drill. But it's when an automaker puts its money where its mouth is that we really stand up and take notice. That's precisely what Audi is doing as it attempts to convert 25 percent of its sales to electrified vehicles by 2025. Citing two sources with knowledge of Audi's plans, Reuters reports that around a third of the company's research-and-development budget will go to " electric cars, digital services, and autonomous driving." Of course, shifting that much money over to newer technologies means sacrifices elsewhere – Reuters' sources claim Audi will move money away from combustion engines and reduce country-specific powertrain variants, but the sources wouldn't get more specific. According to Reuters, Audi is 22nd in total sales of hybrids and EVs. That's eight spots behind Mercedes and ten spots behind BMW (not to mention hybrid-happy Lexus). Audi's only electric representatives in the US market are the A3 e-Tron and Q5 Hybrid and things aren't much better in Europe – the company needs to dump buckets of money into expanding its meager lineup to bring up the percentage of EVs it sells. Expect greater detail on Audi's electrification plans very soon – CEO Rupert Stadler will discuss the company's path forward on Wednesday at a closed-door meeting in Munich with over 2,000 managers. It's unlikely all those managers will be able to keep quiet. We'll be listening. Related Video: Featured Gallery Audi E-Tron Quattro Concept View 36 Photos News Source: ReutersImage Credit: Audi Green Audi Volkswagen Green Driving Electric Hybrid PHEV e-tron audi e-tron electrification

VW brands excluded from Wards 10 Best Engines for 2016

You definitely won't be seeing a powerplant from Volkswagen or Audi on the 2016 Ward's 10 Best Engines list. In a serious rebuke against them, WardsAuto is excluding all VW/Audi powertrains for at least this year after the German automakers' ongoing emissions regulations evasions. There's no guarantee of the companies returning for 2017, either. In a story on its website, WardsAuto executive editor Tom Murphy writes that the ban lasts "until we are convinced the culture of deceit has been purged, fines have been paid and regulators are satisfied." That could be a while, the way things are looking. The exclusion knocks three powertrains out of the running for this year's list. As a winner last year, WardsAuto would usually test VW's 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder again for 2016. Plus, it planned to check out the 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder from the Audi A6 and the plug-in hybrid from the A3 Sportback E-Tron. In the story, Murphy finds VW's actions particularly despicable because of what they could be doing to the popularity of diesel passenger cars in this country. "BMW, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler also sell light-duty diesel engines in the US, but their sales outlook suddenly has grown murky, thanks to VW's shenanigans," he writes. So far, Jaguar Land Rover is remaining confident of US consumers continuing to buy diesel models, though. We'll be able to see the real effects of VW and Audi's ban in a few months because the 2016 Ward's 10 Best Engines will be published December 10. With two major automakers out of the running, their rivals will likely greet this as a better chance to make the grade.