Audis will help you save cash
Want to save yourself some money on fuel? Well, Audi wants to change your driving style to do it. The maker has unveiled a new driving efficiency programme that tells you how to improve consumption by monitoring your driving style and giving you fuel saving tips accordingly.
The new technology will debut with the A3 1.4-litre TFSI petrol model by the end of this year, before being rolled out to other 2.0-litre capacity A4 and A5 models with manual gearboxes in 2010.
The technology unveiled today (Thursday 14th May 2009) incorporates a gearshift indicator (which is not a new thing), but also shows how much fuel is being used by ‘comfort’ equipment such as heated seats and air conditioning, prompting you to turn them off if you don’t need them. According to Audi, up to 30 percent of fuel consumption is dependent on driving style, so changing driver behaviour is key.
The maker will introduce a new start-stop system too, which it claims reduces CO2 by 5g/km and lowers consumption by cutting the engine out at idle, as well as utilising ‘sophisticated energy management’ to warm the engine up quicker and scrape yet more miles from a gallon of fuel. This is on top of innovations already introduced by the Ingolstadt maker like improved aerodynamics, low rolling resistance tyres and energy recapture when the car is decelerating.
