click the Mileage Marathon vehicles for a high res gallery

Audi has announced plans to demonstrate the fuel efficiency of its new diesel vehicles by running a cross-country marathon this fall. The automaker is providing 23 TDI vehicles that will be driven by up to 184 drivers from around the world, including some of the crew from AutoblogGreen and Autoblog. The vehicles will include the Q7, Q5 and A4 with the 3.0L TDI V6 and the A3 with the same 2.0L four cylinder TDI used in the new Jetta. The Marathon will kick off October 6 in New York City and wind its way to Los Angeles via Chicago, Denver and Monterey. The drivers will all be trying to outdo each other to earn daily rewards for lowest fuel consumption.

For now, Audi has only announced that the Q7 will be offered for sale in the U.S. starting sometime in the first quarter of 2009. It will be equipped with a particulate filter and urea injection system allowing it to pass Tier 2 Bin 5 emissions in all 50 states. Audi is considering other diesels for U.S. sale but hasn't made any decisions or announcements yet. The Q5 which was announced last spring at the Beijing Motor Show will go on sale in the U.S. with a gasoline V6 next summer and makes its debut on U.S. soil during the Marathon. A hybrid Q5 is expected to go on sale as early as 2010 and it could be joined by a diesel for the U.S. market.


[Source: Audi]

Audi's first mass-production hybrid model was to have been the Q7 SUV beginning in early 2009. As Audi officials told ABG back in April, that program has been effectively canceled. Audi had been working on the development with VW and Porsche, whose Touareg and Cayenne share their platforms with the Q7. Audi R&D Boss Michael Dick has confirmed to Autocar that development of hybrids with nickel metal hydride batteries has been put on hold. Instead, the company will focus on lithium battery hybrids expected to debut with the Q5 in 2010. Audi explained that they were not satisfied with the poor cold weather performance and limited capacity of NiMH batteries. When the batteries are low, the vehicle loses a significant amount of performance and Audi engineers wanted to ensure that the performance was consistent. They don't want a driver to pull out for a passing maneuver and have less acceleration than expected due to a cold or flat battery. VW and Porsche are proceeding with their nickel metal hydride battery hybrid plans.

[Source: Autocar]

The only thing that seems to be certain about Audi's hybrid plans is that absolutely nothing is certain. Just since the Los Angeles Auto Show in November, Audi officials have said they will build a Q7 hybrid in 2009, then at the Detroit Auto Show in January they said they would build an A4 hybrid instead. In Detroit they showed an A4 hybrid powertrain and Product Mgr, Carter Balkom said that car was coming in 2009. More recently, Audi has indicated they wouldn't build a Q7 hybrid but would instead do a hybrid version of the new Q5 in 2010. When I was in Germany last month to drive the new A4, several Audi engineers indicated that they would not build any hybrids until they had lithium ion batteries since they were not satisfied with the performance of nickel metal hydrides. They also indicated that with the current exchange rates, a hybrid sourced from Germany wouldn't make business sense because it would be too expensive. I was told that the Q7 would focus on the TDI diesel instead. Apparently Q5/Q7 marketing head Frank Hermann has told Automotive News yet another story. Hermann told AN that there would no Q5 hybrid but a Q7 hybrid was coming in 2009, bringing us all the way back around. We've got an email query into Audi that will might provide an answer, but I'm not hopeful.

[Source: Automotive News: - sub. req'd]