The new Audi A4 TDIe aims to mix luxury and sportiness with fuel efficiency.

Compromise is typically the name of the game for car buyers hankering after space and real-world fuel efficiency combined with a dose of sporty performance. Two outa three ain’t bad, right?

Now Audi says you can have it all with the greenest version yet of its A4 mid-size sedan, dubbed the 2.0 TDIe.

We’re testing the theory on the type of road trip that holidaying families might find themselves on: kicking off by wading through Adelaide’s morning peak hour and ending around seven hours and more than 500km later in outback Broken Hill.

The designated route is deficient of the type of roads that showcase sporting virtue, but no matter. Today’s trip is mostly about fuel; specifically, how much – or little – we’re going to use.

Along the way we’ll reinforce our opinion of the A4’s worth as an open-road tourer that pampers up to four occupants in comfortable and classy surroundings. We’ll arrive in the rural mining centre feeling fresh, courtesy of comfy and supportive leather seats and a generous equipment specification that includes cruise control, climate control, a 10-speaker audio system that includes full iPod integration, and automatic headlights and wipers.

The first order of the day is to get acquainted with the 2.0 TDIe’s headline act, a stop/start system that can shut off the engine when the car comes to a halt, saving fuel that is normally burnt when the car is idling. Adelaide’s brief but heavy peak hour provides ample opportunity, with plenty of traffic around to regularly hamper our progress.

Bring the A4 to a halt, slot the six-speed manual gearbox into neutral and remove your foot from the clutch. In most cases the engine switches itself off with a tiny but perceptible shudder, and sits idle and silent until the clutch is depressed. Then it springs back to life with a quick cough, and is typically ready for action before you can slot first gear and move your right foot from the brake to depress the accelerator.

It’s possible to deactivate the system by pressing a button in the centre console, but with a system that works this well, why bother? Other irregular activities will also cause it to shut down – stalling, for instance. To re-boot the system, though, you need to reactivate the dash-mounted key with two presses, rather than simply stabbing the more conveniently located engine starter button on the console. It’s a small blight on an otherwise well-devised design.

There’s also an automatic over-ride function that will prioritise the car’s needs – maintaining the climate control temperature or feeding other demands on the electrical system – by restarting the stopped engine if needed.

Hand-in-glove with the stop-start system is another cornerstone technology, Audi’s “Driver Efficiency Program”. It has the dual role of informing the driver what the car is doing, and telling them how to drive more efficiently. Opening a window while the climate control is working earns a rebuke, while holding a gear for too long also prompts a suggestion that you should be paying more attention to the gearshift indicator.

You can also view your instant and average fuel consumption on the same screen, quickly teaching you where you use most fuel. It becomes an involving challenge to try to undercut the average by moderating bursts of acceleration and coasting more frequently to squeeze more distance from the fuel tank.

Another handy gauge shows how much your ancillary functions – such as climate control – are contributing to fuel use, although it requires some mathematical nous to recalculate the litres-per-hour readout into the standard litres-per-100km measure.

Other fuel-saving technogies are not as obvious, but still apparent in day-to-day driving. Aerodynamic measures including a 15mm-lower ride height courtesy of sports-tuned suspension help the A4 to scythe more efficiently through the air and generate better balance and handling, but also produce a less forgiving ride with small-to-medium road acne transferred faithfully through the cabin. Low rolling-resistance tyres generate significant tyre noise on coarse-chip surfaces, but gear ratios reconfigured for fuel economy do little to dampen the A4’s enthusiastic response to requests for acceleration. Brake energy recovery and regeneration is seamless and unnoticeable.

At the heart of it all is Audi’s 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo diesel (or TDI, in Audi-speak) engine. With just 100kW of power but 320Nm of torque it’s flexible and willing, with equal enthusiasm for overtaking on the open road as for diving into a gap in traffic. The six-speed manual is relatively easy to use with a nice, positive clutch action but the lack of an automatic option – for which Audi is still working on a stop/start system – won’t overjoy some prospective customers.

So does it all make a difference to consumption? Or is it all metaphoric smoke and mirrors? Officially, the A4 2.0 TDIe gets a combined consumption figure of 4.8 litres per 100km, one litre per 100km better than the A4 2.0 TDI on which it is based.

In peak hour traffic, where cars normally drink the most, we saw around 3.0L/100km courtesy of frequent engine shutdowns, rising to 3.9L/100km by the time we reached the city limits as speed rose and traffic lights thinned. A couple more hours of highway driving nudged the average to 4.9L/100km by our lunch stop in the Clare Valley.

With trip computers reset we again hit the highway after lunch and with the stop/start system rendered redundant, consumption settled around the high fives, showing 5.7L/100km as we rolled into Broken Hill. Above the official average it may be, but we’d also rate it an above-average result relative to the comfort, space and ambience we’d enjoyed over the day.

Priced from $49,900 (plus on-road and dealer costs), the Audi A4 2.0 TDIe is the new starting point in the A4 range and undercuts its diesel-powered BMW and Mercedes-Benz competitors by more than $10,000 on price, and at least 0.6L/100km on official consumption.

Audi says it wants to woo hybrid drivers looking for more performance and sportiness. Although we’re yet to be convinced that the A4’s firmer ride will impress the conservative petrol-electric crowd, the A4 2.0 TDIe still ticks a lot of boxes.

JEZ SPINKS

New A1 will be sporty and customisable … just like BMW’s iconic British hatch.

Audi has revealed the production version of its new Mini rival.

The A1 will become the smallest Audi on the market when it reaches Australia in late 2010, with the German car maker saying it will feature multiple customisation options and sporty driving characteristics just like BMW’s iconic hatch.

Audi says the three-door A1 is targeted at younger buyers and will feature a high level of individualisation. The company, however, has also warned the hatchback is not going to be cheap for a small car, with pricing expected to follow the Mini with a starting point in the low-$30,000 bracket.

The four-seat interior will offer connections for Bluetooth and portable music players such as iPhones, as well as infotainment and multimedia systems based on those used in the company’s more expensive luxury vehicles.

Different seat colours are one of the options buyers will have to individualise the A1’s interior, while contrasting paint for the car’s roof arches will also be available.

The contrasting roof arches featured on the 2007 Metroproject quattro concept that closely previewed the A1, which is based on the same underpinnings as the forthcoming Volkswagen Polo.

The production A1 hatchback retains the arched shape and short overhangs of the concept, and is easily identified as an Audi by design cues such as the dominant grille, LED daytime running lights and sharply styled head- and tail-lights.

At 3950mm in length, the A1 is 251mm longer than a Mini Cooper hatch. It should also be more practical, with more boot space (267 v 160 litres).

The A1 is also set to be Audi’s most fuel efficient model, launching with four four-cylinder engines featuring both turbocharging and direct injection and ranging in consumption from 3.8 to 5.4 litres per 100km.

Engines include two 1.6-litre turbo diesels with 66kW and 77kW of power respectively, and two turbo petrols comprising 63kW 1.2-litre and 90kW 1.4-litre.

A seven-speed dual-clutch automated manual will be a cost alternative to the standard manual gearbox.

Stop-start and regenerative brakes will contribute to efficiency, while the 1.2-litre engine also benefits from a new temperature management system.

Five-door and convertible versions of the A1 are expected to follow the three-door, as well as S1 and RS1 performance versions.

Autonomous TTS coupe to compete at 2010 Pikes Peak – driver not included.

A remote control car that can drive itself will take part in one of the world’s most challenging – and treacherous – motor races.

Using advanced electronics and a sophisticated internet link the driverless Audi TT is set to compete as a technological showcase in motorsport races next year, including America’s renowned Pikes Peak Hill Climb.

The Autonomous Audi is currently controlled by a computer fitted inside its boot, and from 2010 will run using Java real-time programming updates received via telemetry from up to 32km away.

The German car maker says the aim is for such cars to communicate with a network aerial towers – to send and receive telemetry signals – in a similar manner to mobile phone aerials.

Audi, however, is pre-empting a backlash from motorists by stressing that the Autonomous Audi TTS Coupe is not designed to dispense with drivers in the future.

It says the vehicle “is intended to explore the best capabilities of current and future driver assistance technologies to help Audi enhance the experience behind the steering wheel for future driver generations”.

The executive director of Audi parent company Volkswagen’s Electronics Research Laboratory, which is working on the project in tandem with the US’s Stanford University, says the Autonomous TTS’s technology could help to give motorists the reflexes of a skilled motorsport driver to avoid accidents.

“We believe that developing a car that can perform as well and respond as rapidly as a professional driver, like a race or rally driver, will eventually be able to drive its way around incidents in a way that a ‘normal’ driver couldn’t.

“While a less experienced driver may freeze or make the wrong ‘correction’, the Autonomous TTS would be able to take over or guide the driver to escape from a critical situation. It could also compensate if a driver is inattentive to conditions or distracted, but of course it won’t prevent all accidents.”

The Autonomous TT is based on the TTS coupe that is powered by a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine.

2009 Audi Eora & Espire concepts

A competition intended to show the cars of tomorrow has come up with designs both sleek and hideous.

Remember the time-travelling DeLorean DMC-12 that featured in the Back to the Future movies?

Well, imagine it’s just pulled up in your driveway and the film’s wild-haired scientist, Emmett Brown, has offered to take you on a trip 21 years into the future.

You step inside and with a snap of the gullwing doors and a surge of the flux capacitor you arrive in the year 2030. What do the streets and cars look like? What are young people now driving?

Some of the world’s top automotive designers have tried to answer those very questions (without the use of a time machine) and have come up with some seriously out-there answers.

The LA Auto Show, which this year is being held from December 4, features an annual design challenge in which leading brands are asked to submit visions for how the vehicles of the future will look.

This year the American design divisions of companies including General Motors, Toyota and Nissan were given the theme Youthmobile and asked to create renderings of vehicles that young people would be driving 21 years from now.

At the outset they were reminded of the key role cars played in young people’s lives today and were likely to play in 2030. Vehicles provide freedom and the ability to socialise and they’re also an important means of self-expression.

The designers were asked to consider the impact growing up with mobile phones, online communities and webcams would have on consumers two decades from now.

“Automotive designers have always been fascinated with the next generation of drivers,” the director of the Design Los Angeles segment of the motor show, Chuck Pelly, says.

“This year’s design challenge has provided them with the opportunity to use their creative talents to revisit the concept of ‘the car’ with new eyes, using the hottest technologies to both explore and fulfil the needs of young people.”

The submissions from the brands varied widely, although there were common themes. Electric vehicles, cars that were able to morph their shape and cars that leant themselves to clever youth marketing were recurrent motifs.

So too were vehicles that allowed connectivity to social networking sites. A winner will be picked by a panel of experts during the show and while it’s unlikely any will ever go into production, they at least show where designers believe we’re heading.

So what did the individual companies pitch? Honda sees increased interaction between cars and humans in 2030.

“Emerging technologies, such as genetic integration and advanced adaptive polymers, will shatter the current paradigm of what is now considered ‘personally’ unique,” it says in its pitch.

The company proposes shape-shifting vehicles that could modify their size and wheelbase depending on the constraints of the environment around them.

Nissan sees a rosy 2030 in which electricity has replaced petrol as the main propellant for cars and US highways have been electrified to create an ultra-efficient, high-speed network called the GRID.

The company’s electric offering is the crab-like V2G and it suggests consumers would be able to buy access to the electricity grid in the same way they subscribe to mobile phone plans.

General Motors sees a blurring of the lines between gaming, learning to drive and driving. It proposes cars that could drive themselves to destinations when a passenger puts an address into the on-board sat-nav device.

Young passengers would be encouraged to compete with the sat-nav on a driving simulator. When their skills developed they would be allowed control of some features. Advanced drivers would be able to modify vehicles for increased power.

Mazda envisions a 2030 where personalisation and customisation of cars is all-important.

It sees young people designing their own vehicles online based around a platform called Souga, with the company then fulfilling these requirements.

It paints a future where it costs young people just $US2000 to buy the physical car.

Digital communication and information devices, it predicts, will be integrated into fashion apparel, eliminating the need to include these systems in cars.

Toyota’s offering for 2030 takes into account that education levels are rising in the US and young consumers are increasingly well educated and proactive.

It proposes LINK, “an affordable, customisable, mass-transit vehicle for students with high social-networking demands and continuously evolving preferences”.

These small personal vehicles would be kept at central hubs. They would allow users to tap into social networking sites, trade music and compare class schedules.

Finally, Audi went beyond the brief and created two concept cars’ a performance vehicle and an affordable, entry-level car. Both blend lightweight metals and composite materials and feature wheels without hubs.

The company says its low-profiled eSpira would be a “technological tour-de-force” performance car. An advanced logic system would allow drivers to steer the vehicle with body movements and gestures, making motoring a more organic experience.

Perhaps a more realistic option for (typically impoverished) young motorists is the company’s eOra, which it envisages would share the logic control system with the eSpira but be more of a city car with a small footprint and good agility.

V2G
Maker Nissan
Features The company envisages a 2030 in which national highways are electrified (like a dodgem track) to provide power to electric cars.Young consumers would buy access to the system in the way they buy mobile phone credits today.

Hero
Maker General Motors
Features This is a selectively self-driving car that allows new drivers to assume full control only after they have proved themselves on on-board driving simulators. As driving skill increases, so do power options.

Helix
Maker Honda
Features Honda proposes vehicles that can morph to suit their environment. In built-up city areas the vehicle has a small footprint, whereas on the open road it has a larger,more stable platform capable of high speed.

Souga
Maker Mazda
Features Young people are able to design their dream cars online and have them built on the Souga platform. One example is the minimal, lightweight sports coupe (pictured above).

LINK
Maker Toyota
Features Toyota proposes a network of small motorised vehicles, which would be kept at central hubs and personalised by young users.Access to social networking sites is a given.

eOra and eSpira
Name Ora commuter vehicle and eSpira performance car.
Maker Audi.
Features Both incorporate on-board computers that allow them to be driven using subtle body movements and gestures.