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Welcome to Las Vegas, and
the first day of the last leg of the Audi Mileage
Marathon, a cross-country tour involving 23 diesel-powered
Audi vehicles.
Well, it was 23 until late yesterday, when a change
in the route for the drive that was loaded into the
GPS systems in all of the cars wasn't updated in
one of the vehicles, which was instructed to turn
down a gravel road that had been washed out. Neither
of the car's occupants was injured, but the oil pan
was separated from the engine. No oil. No go.
But the marathon goes on, with 22 vehicles - and
with me, invited to be one of the drivers for the
last of four legs, this one from Las Vegas to Los
Angeles.
Usually, driving from Vegas to LA consumes about
4 ½ hours. We'll take four days. But we're
not taking the direct route - Interstate 15. Instead,
we're driving out across Death Valley, then up through
Yosemite National Park, then spending two nights
on California's Monterey Peninsula so we can watch
the final race of the American Le Mans Series, which
Audi has dominated with its diesel-powered racecars.
Finally, we'll head down California's famed Pacific
Coast Highway for a finish in Santa Monica.
The point of the exercise is for Audi
to showcase its clean and oh-so-fuel efficient Turbo
Direct Injection (TDI) powertrain technology.
"The Audi Mileage Marathon is much more than
a two-week adventure across the great United States,"
said Johan de Nysschen, executive vice president
of Audi of America. "The Marathon is literally
about the future of transportation in this country.
"Until now, conventional wisdom would have
you believe that there is one, and only one, alternative
to the current state of automotive mobility. This
way of thinking suggests that hybrids are the paramount
solution to the twin concerns of global warming and
dependence on oil."
Hybrids, de Nysschen agreed, "are a wonderful
option." Especially for those who do most of
their driving at slower, city speeds, where the electric
part of the hybrid powertrain does the most to cut
fuel consumption.
But, de Nysschen and his company note, the new and
clean diesel technology being used by Audi and others
also delivers outstanding fuel economy with greatly
reduced emissions, especially at highway speeds,
and brings with it the benefit of high-torque performance.
For the past few years, Audi has showcased the benefits
of improved mileage and outstanding performance with
its R10 racecars, which have dominated at Le Mans
and in the ALMS. Now, with the Mileage Marathon,
it hopes to show the same benefits on public roads,
with diesel-powered Q7 and Q5 utilities, and with
the A4 sedan and A3 hatchback participating in the
Marathon.
"Fascinating cities; breathtaking landscapes,"
is how Audi spokesman Josef Schlossmacher described
the Marathon route at our driver's briefing.
The route began in New York City and so far has
traveled to Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago,
Memphis, Dallas, Amarillo, Denver, Durango, Sedona
and now, well, we're leaving Las Vegas.
I was invited to drive in the Audi Mileage Marathon
by Michelin, which is supplying all the tires
for the two dozen participating vehicles.
One of those vehicles, wearing competitor No. 10
on its windshield and rear side windows - as well
as a large image of Mr. Bib on its hood - is a 2009
Audi A4 sedan powered by a 3.0-liter TDI (turbo direct
injection) diesel engine.
At the briefing for drivers participating in this,
the fourth - and final - leg of the cross-country
mileage marathon, we were told that we weren't merely
driving. We were competing.
Each car carries an on-board computer that records
all sorts of parameters, including average and top
speed, fuel use, brake applications, etc. At the
end of each day's driving, points are to be awarded
under a formula that factors in both fuel economy
and average speed.
After all, says Audi, the benefit of driving with
clean diesel technology is more than fuel economy.
It's "driving pleasure with a clear conscience."
To make sure there will be no cheating (as pleasurable
as some might find that exercise), a seal is placed
on each fuel filler door by an official of the International
Motor Sports Association, and that seal is not to
be broken until the end of the day's drive, when
all cars are refilled -- by IMSA personnel -- with
Shell clean diesel fuel.
There will be competition in four categories - Q7
and Q5 utility vehicles, A4 sedans and A3 Sportbacks.
The A4 group includes seven cars - four in Audi colors,
one with the big yellow Shell on its roof, one with
the emblems of clothing maker Belstaff, and our silver-and-blue
Michelin machine.
Weight is not a friend of fuel economy and our car
figures to be the heaviest in our class because we'd
be traveling with three people - and three people's
luggage - aboard. In addition to my co-driver, Jaime
Gabaldoni, Autos Channel editor of Terra Networks
USA, Bob Massa of Michelin will be riding along in
the back seat.
Now, Bob's a wonderful guy and all, but Jaime and
I certainly don't need him or his big, 60-pound duffle
bag and other gear weighting us down. But, we really
can't just ditch him - not in Las Vegas and certainly
not in the middle of Death Valley, so we'll have
to make the best of the situation.
And we did!
I drove the first leg - from the Wynn hotel, down
the Vegas strip, out across the desert to Pahrump
and beyond, dropping into Death Valley near Zabriske
Point - but then leaving the assigned route for a
17-mile each way detour to Badwater Basin, at 282
feet below sea level the lowest point in North America.
I got us back to the Death Valley Visitor's Center,
where we found some shade and ate box lunches. Then
Jaime took the wheel and we headed out across the
Valley, climbing up to Town Pass, then plunging down
into the Panamint Valley and then up again, up and
up and yet up even more to Lone Pine (at the foot
of Mount Whitney, tallest mountain in the Lower 48)
and further north to Mammoth Mountain, where IMSA
officials broke the fuel seal, refilled the car and
downloaded data from the on-board computer before
we made our way a couple more miles to the Westin
Monache Resort, some 8100 feet above sea level, or
more than an 8300-foot, fuel-sucking climb from Badwater
Basin.
Jaime was particularly serious about the competition
and said he'd been working on his fuel-saving driving
skills that dated back to in his native Peru (he
now lives near Miami), when he was dating a woman
who lived many miles from his home and gasoline was
very expensive so Jaime stretched the fuel he could
afford by shifting his car into neutral and coasting
down hills.
I drove pretty much in my normal fashion. Though
I didn't do any jackrabbit starts, I turned off the
engine rather than let the car idle when we pulled
over to take photos of the scenery, but I didn't
make a big effort to drive conservatively, figuring
that if the technology really is as good as Audi
says it is, the car would prove itself.
It did, helped, no doubt, by Jaime's skills on the
hills. At the second day drivers' briefing, the first
day's results were announced. Not only had Jaime
and I - and Bob - beat all the other A4s, we had
the best score overall!
We'd averaged 36.6 miles per gallon - 1.6 mpg better
than any of the other A4s and, in fact, better than
any of the other cars in the other categories as
well -- while averaging 51 miles per hour - making
us the fastest of the A4s as well.
By the way, we'd kept the mileage-draining air conditioning
on throughout the drive. Hey, it's one thing to want
to win; another to avoid being miserable doing it.
Under a point system derived for the event, we'd
totaled 209 points, five more than the winning Q5
(No. 16), the new mid-size Audi crossover vehicle
coming to U.S. Audi dealerships next March and the
only other vehicle in the marathon to post a score
of 200 or more this day.
While our figures may have been impressive, what
was really impressive was that an Audi A4, a sedan
equipped with all sorts of luxuries -- Alcantara-lined
seats, navigation, etc. - and carrying three people
and luggage that overflowed from a good-sized trunk
into the rear-seat of the passenger compartment -
averaged better than 36 mpg while driving - basically
- uphill!
The 2009 Audi A4 equipped with a gasoline-burning,
3.2-liter V6 is rated at 17-mpg in town and at 26
on the highway. Here we are, in the same car but
with a clean-diesel, 3.0-liter V6, and we're averaging
better than 36 on a day of mostly uphill driving.
We may have won the day, but the real winners figure
to be those who opt for clean diesel when Audi makes
it available, perhaps as early as sometime next year.
But that's next year. Now it's just the next
day, and the rising sun was illuminating
the jagged eastern ridgeline of the Sierra Nevada
mountains when Audi's Josef Schlossmacher suggested
at the daily drivers' briefing that "the camera
should be on the front seat," which was Schlossmacher's
way to telling us that we'd be driving through some
amazing scenery on this, the second day of the last
leg of the Audi Mileage Marathon.
Our caravan would leave the Westin Monache Resort,
head north on U.S. 395 past Mono Lake and then turn
west on California 120 toward Yosemite National Park.
Josef was right. Even before we'd reached the park
entrance we'd stopped our Michelin blue-and-silver
A4 several times to stand in awe, to take photographs,
and to attempt to absorb the wonder of this landscape.
And, as I said, we were yet to reach what naturalist
John Muir described as "by far the grandest
of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted
to enter."
Jagged peaks, domes of exposed granite, waterfalls,
tall trees, meadows and more. This is where photographer
Ansel Adams did much of his finest work.
Yosemite was designated as a California state park
in 1864 and later as a national park. As we drive
through, we're grateful our American heritage included
leaders with the wisdom to preserve such places for
public use rather than allow them to be bought up
or even to be subdivided for private development
and commercial exploitation. Surely there was something
of value that might have been mined in Yosemite.
But could its value ever have rivaled what we can
see, what we can experience in this natural cathedral?
"Yosemite," it turns out, is an Anglicized
version of the Native American word for "among
them are killers," a reference to the area's
ancient Ahwahneechee people, whose name has been
shortened and given to the historic Ahwahnee Lodge
where we eat lunch not far from the base of El Capitan.
El Capitan's high vertical wall of rock is just
across the narrow Yosemite Valley from Half Dome,
with which it former perhaps the park's two most
well-known landmarks.
Alas, we can linger only so long. We have to leave
landmarks behind. After all, we're on a marathon
and it's time to move on, on toward Merced, then
on to Monterey. We have miles to go, though hopefully
expending the least amount of diesel fuel to cover
them.
After averaging 36.6 miles per gallon and 51 miles
per hour on the leg from Las Vegas to Mammoth, we
improved to 39.8 between Mammoth and Monterey, though
our average speed dropped to 42 mph, in large part
because we did, in fact, linger in Yosemite, where
we also expected some extra fuel after the film crew
traveling with the marathon asked Jaime and me to
do a couple of extra and slow laps around the Yosemite
Valley loop road so they could do in-vehicle interviews
as we drove.
Anyway, our fuel economy and speed figures produced
173 points under the marathon scoring system. Unlike
yesterday, we didn't win the daily competition as
one of the other A4s averaged 41.3 mpg and 44 mph,
for a 194 point total.
The cars participating in the Audi Mileage Marathon
didn't add many numbers to their odometers today
(it's Saturday). We drove only from Monterey's famed
Cannery Row a few miles up the coast and slightly
inland to old Fort Ord and the venerable Laguna Seca
Raceway. Though the marathon cars would make a parade
lap around the track, it would be two other diesel-powered
Audis that would be the focus of attention as the
Audi R10 TDI Le Mans racecars completed the American
Le Mans Series season.
Audi already had clinched yet another ALMS prototype
racing championship - its fifth in a row - weeks
ago. Nonetheless, the Audi Sport North America team
didn't relax, coming from two laps behind to win
the Petite Le Mans last weekend at Road Atlanta and
then ending the season with another victory - in
fact, a 1-2 finish -- here today.
Allan McNish, the former Formula One racer recruited
by Audi to drive its R10 TDI, admits that "I
said I thought Audi were mad," when the company
decided to scrap its traditionally (gasoline) powered
R8, which McNish called "the most successful
[racing] car in history" to showcase its diesel
engine technology on the racetrack.
But then McNish talked to Frank Biela, who was the
first racer to test the R10 TDI. "Frankie had
the biggest smile on his face," McNish recalls.
So did McNish once he got to see the power and fuel
economy figures.
Since then, the R10 TDI has posted three consecutive
victories in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Audi engineers created turbo direct injection for
diesel engines in the 1970s. Since 1990, the technology
that offers 30-percent more fuel efficiency than
standard gasoline-fueled powertains has gone into
half of the cars Audi sells worldwide and it has
produced a 95 percent reduction in vehicle emissions
while doubling the power performance available to
drivers. The 2009 Audi A4 3.0 TDI I'm driving this
week pumps out 240 horsepower and a wonderful 369
foot-pounds of torque, yet is rated at 23 miles per
gallon in city driving and at 32 on the highway.
Nonetheless, says Johan de Nysschen, executive vice
president of Audi of America, most Americans think
of diesel as dirty, noisy, smelly, sooty and, well,
boring, and as something best left to drivers of
heavy trucks.
But now that the U.S. federal government has mandated
European-style, low-sulfur, "clean" diesel,
Audi and others - including, quite significantly,
Honda - are rolling out new, clean diesel-powered
vehicles for the American roads.
Knowing that changing minds would not be an easy,
overnight activity, Audi launched a plan. It began
with proving its technology on the racetrack. Now,
with the Audi Mileage Marathon, it showcases that
technology on a cross-country tour, sending nearly
two dozen TDI-powered production vehicles - Q7 and
Q5 utilities, A4 sedans and A3 Sportbacks - on a
two-week road trip involving 184 drivers on a route
of more than 4800 miles and spanning 17 of the 50
states.
We're on the last leg of that marathon. Today's
an off day to watch the ALMS race, and then tomorrow
our marathon concludes with a drive down California
Highway 1 from Monterey to LA.
We were standing a few days ago at one of the
parking areas along Tioga Road in Yosemite National
Park, admiring one of the vistas, when a couple walked
up and asked about the Michelin be-stickered Audi
A4 we were driving. He was talking about our dependence
on foreign oil when another of the diesel-powered
cars participating in the Audi Mileage Marathon pulled
in.
"It doesn't sound like a diesel," she
said, and we talked about how the new "clean"
diesel fuel and the vehicles that use it no longer
are noisy, smelly or sooty. But with diesel engines
pumping out oh-so-much torque, clean diesel vehicles
certainly can be fun to drive, yet fuel efficient
and green at the same time.
For example, we're now in Santa Monica, California,
having completed the last leg of the marathon that
began on the opposite coast, in New York City. The
route took the cars and a relay of drivers on a route
that covered 4888 miles. Total driving time was 92.58
hours. That works out to an average speed of 52.79
miles per hour, so no one was dawdling on this drive,
though we all certainly took time to stop and admire
the scenery along the way.
For the full route, the Audi A3 Sportbacks averaged
44.6 miles per gallon, the A4 sedans finished at
36.2, the Q5 crossover (which should be coming to
the United States sometime next year) averaged 31.8
and the big, three-row Q7 crossover posted a 27.6
mpg average, which, I'll note, puts it more than
5 mpg ahead of GM's gas/electric hybrid SUVs.
The Q7 TDI will be the first of Audi's new diesel-powered
vehicles available for U.S. sales, sometime in calendar
2009. Audi will announce the on-sale date in January
at the North American International Auto Show in
Detroit. More than half of all Audis sold in the
world are powered by TDI diesels and Audi of America
anticipates that perhaps 15 percent of its U.S. sales
in the coming years will have diesel engines.
Audi's Johan de Nysschen notes that the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency projects that if one-third of all
U.S. vehicles used clean diesel instead of unleaded
gasoline, the resulting fuel efficiency benefits
would be equivalent to saving 1.4 million barrels
of oil a day, which is how much we import each day
from Saudi Arabia.
"We need to find ways to embrace this technology,"
de Nysschen says. Yet, he adds, in fact the federal
and state governments, which give tax breaks for
hybrids, discourage diesel use with higher taxes.
The federal tax on a gallon of unleaded gasoline
is 18.4 cents. The tax on a gallon of diesel is 24.4
cents, or 32.6 percent more.
Fifteen of the 50 states also tax diesel at a higher
rate than gasoline.
You may remember it wasn't all that many years ago
that diesel cost less at the pump than gasoline.
Well, it should, because when you refine petroleum,
you start with crude and, after several steps, you
get diesel - and then you go through several more
steps to get unleaded gasoline. If diesel can be
produced for much less cost, shouldn't it cost less
at the pump as well?
While we were participating in the Audi Mileage
Marathon, the EPA published its annual Fuel Economy
Guide, this time for 2009 model year vehicles. The
top four were all hybrids: Toyota Prius, 48 city/45
highway; Honda Civic 40/45; Nissan Altima, 35/33;
Ford Escape, 34/31.
Volkswagen's new diesel-powered Jetta was seventh
at 29/40.
For our drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles by way
of Death Valley and 282 feet below sea level to Yosemite,
passing over an 11,000-foot mountain pass, and on
to Monterey and then down the California coast, co-driver
Jaime Gabaldoni and I averaged 37.7 mpg and 46.8
mph in a 2009 Audi A4 3.0 TDI - with an extra passenger
and luggage to boot.
Not only did we take first place among all A4s in
the fourth leg point standings - a formula designed
to underscore that diesel is both fuel efficient
and fun by rewarding both mpg and mph - but our drive
in a roomy and luxurious four-door sedan would have
placed us behind only the compact Prius and Civic
on the EPA's ratings!
And while I hate to admit it, all we did was extend
the Michelin A4s winning streak. It also led the
A4 category for the third leg (from Denver to Las
Vegas), and on the run from Chicago down to Memphis,
the Michelin car set an A4 fuel economy standard
by averaging 44.8 mpg.
The Audi Q7s and Q5s and A4s and A3s all rode on
Michelin tires and were filled up each evening with
Shell's clean diesel fuel.
A note about those tires: All wore Michelin's Green
X, a symbol indicating the tire maker's commitment
to producing energy efficient tires that help reduce
C02 emissions through reduced rolling resistance,
though without the usual compromises in performance.
For example, the 225/50-aspect, 17-inch Michelin
Primacy HP tires on our A4 were Z rated, capable
of high cornering forces and dealing with speeds
in excess of 170 mph (though we didn't get within
60 mph of that figure).
Lowering emissions and increasing fuel economy while
providing the sort of performance Americans expect
from their vehicles are only part of the diesel advantage.
Another is range.
For example, the gasoline-powered 2009 Audi A4 3.2
FSI on sale in the U.S. has a range of approximately
340 miles before its tank runs dry. But our A4 averaged
622 miles per tank on its real-world cross-country
adventure. To put that into average commuter terms,
if you're filling your car once a week, you'd fill
your diesel only twice a month.
As they say, "your mileage may vary…."
But compared to using unleaded gasoline, your mileage
on clean diesel won't just vary, it will be very
good.
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