2002 Audi Tt Quattro Base Coupe 2-door 1.8l on 2040-cars

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Audi will spend less on future technology as it focuses on future technology

It seems the very thing meant to be saved by Audi curtailing spending could also take a hit as a result. A report from Reuters outlines a few ways Audi will cut costs in the wake of its parent company's diesel scandal. While focusing on EVs, autonomous driving, and new connected technology instead of its current vehicle portfolio, Audi is axing plans for a track to test self-driving cars as well as facilities meant to produce new concepts and batteries. Or, you know, exactly the kinds of things Audi is now focusing its efforts on. Some of this shouldn't come as a surprise. We already know about the death of the R8 E-Tron, a low-volume EV that wasn't going to make the brand much money and didn't pan out as a halo electric car quite like the company probably hoped. Then there's the new E-Tron crossover, which has been in the works for a while and will head a line of consumer-grade EVs from the brand – the kind that will make money as long as they sell in mass-market numbers, something Tesla has shown is possible. That project is surely safe, although perhaps it will now take longer for the EVs to gain autonomous abilities. This change in funding direction could mean that the planned autonomous track, dubbed IN-Campus as it was to be located in Audi's home of Ingolstadt, was going to be more for show than actual research, or that Audi thinks it can get the same outcomes in its existing facilities or new ones located elsewhere. (The company's work council is upset by the plan being put on hold, as it could mean more jobs leaving Germany.) There's also the very strong possibility that this provides a welcome opportunity for the company to cut some fat. Reuters notes that Audi spends more on R&D than rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz, despite having the whole VW Group to leverage. While the diesel scandal was certainly not welcome, it may be forcing Audi and the other Group brands to take a closer look at balance sheets than they otherwise would have. The result of all of this could be a leaner company, assuming too much attention doesn't stray to low-volume EVs and away from what are still the core products. Related Video: News Source: ReutersImage Credit: Reuters Green Audi Technology Crossover Autonomous Vehicles Electric audi e-tron

Ferdinand Piech (1937-2019): The man who made VW global

Towering among his peers, a giant of the auto industry died Sunday night in Rosenheim/Upper Bavaria, Germany. Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who conceived the original Volkswagen in the 1930s, was the most polarizing automotive executive of our times. And one who brought automotive technology further than anyone else. Ferdinand Porsche had a son, Ferdinand (called "Ferry"), and a daughter, Louise, who married the Viennese lawyer Anton Piech. They gave birth to Ferdinand Piech, and his proximity to two Alfa Romeo sports cars — Porsche had done some work for the Italians — and the "Berlin-Rome-Berlin" race car, developed by Porsche himself, gave birth to Piech's interest in cars. After his teachers in Salzburg told his mother he was "too stupid" to attend school there, Piech, who was open about his dyslexia, was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. He subsequently moved on to Porsche, where he fixed issues with the 904 race car and did major work on the 911. But his greatest project was the Le Mans-winning 917 race car, developed at breathtaking financial cost. It annihilated the competition, but the family had had enough: Amid growing tension among the four cousins working at Porsche and Piech's uncle Ferry, the family decided to pull every family member, except for Ferry, out of their management positions. Piech started his own consultancy business, where he designed the famous five-cylinder diesel for Mercedes-Benz, but quickly moved on to Audi, first as an engineer and then as CEO, where he set out to transform the dull brand into a technology leader. Piech killed the Wankel engine and hammered out a number of ambitious and sophisticated technologies. Among them: The five-cylinder gasoline engine; Quattro all-wheel drive and Audi's fantastic rally successes; and turbocharging, developed with Fritz Indra, whom Piech recruited from Alpina. The Audi 100/200/5000 became the world's fastest production sedan, thanks to their superior aerodynamics. Piech also launched zinc-coated bodies for longevity — and gave diesel technology a decisive boost with the advent of the fast and ultra-efficient TDI engines. Less known: Piech also decided to put larger gas tanks into cars. Customers loved it. Piech's first-generation Audi V8 was met with derision by competitors; it was too obviously based on the 200/5000.

2017 Audi A4 Deep Dive

Unchanged. Plain. Boring. These words have been used to describe the new 2017 Audi A4, but they all miss the point entirely. Yes, the design of the new A4 is evolutionary, rather than a ground-up restyling. But as they say in ancient High German, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Of course, if you're at all interested in the 2017 Audi A4, you've probably read all about it in the official press release a few days ago. So we'll cut to the chase and tell you the bits you don't already know: the American-market details. We spent a day at Audi headquarters in Ingolstadt last week finding out the latest and poking around the A4 in the metal. The new A4 is wider, longer, and roomier than before. The lines are crisper and sharper, but yes, the proportions have remained very similar. That was done on purpose, thoughtfully. Not out of laziness. Stand any two sequential generations of Porsche 911 next to each other and you'll find they are rather similar. And yes, people do complain about that. But they also complain about the property tax rate on their third home in Monaco. That familiar-looking body gets a shockingly low coefficient of drag of just 0.23. The improvements in drag come from fine-tuning details down to the placement of the side mirror (now on the door, rather than the triangular window panel) and the contouring of the inner edge of the side mirror, which gets little vortex generating bumps to improve the turbulent airflow in that area, reducing drag. Attention to detail and refinement of a successful design – not boring, lazy repetition. Another notable departure in the styling of the new A4 is equally subtle, but even more significant from a precision manufacturing perspective: the hood has no cut lines on its upper surface. Instead, the hood now wraps around the tops of the fenders, the cut line integrating with the sharp crease that runs down the entire body side. The creation of this cut line requires extremely tight manufacturing tolerances to enable the precise alignment of the hood and fender gap with the stamped-in crease in the door panel; misalignment would be obvious and catastrophic to the clean, simple design's flow. Now, let's rip off this Band-Aid: no, we won't be getting the Avant. Why? Because no one buys it, vociferous vocalizations on the Internet aside.