Audi comes clean

Nov 23 2009 Maurice Glover

Audi comes clean

STOP-START technology has taken the latest versions in Audi's A3 range to the top of the class in efficiency and operating economy.

Now fitted to all two-litre TDI versions, the fuel-saving equipment helps increase economy by at least eight mpg to 64.2mpg on three and five-door models. A 16 per cent drop in tailpipe emissions means the cars now boast exhaust figures as low as 115g/km.

The improvements apply immediately to all 140PS A3 cars with six-speed manual transmission.

But stop-start, which cuts engine power at idle and restarts it in two-tenths of a second when power is required, is only one of the fuel saving systems employed in the German premium brand's crackdown on emissions.

The other is recuperation technology that recycles a proportion of the wasted kinetic energy generated under normal braking. Usually dissipated as heat, the energy is stored in the battery to reduce the engine load when the car accelerates again.

'This latest development represents another efficiency breakthrough, but prices remain unaffected,' says a spokesman.