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There is a lot to love about the 2014 Audi e-tron Spyder. It’s a compact roadster with a torque-happy, twin-turbo diesel V6 mated to two electric motors capable of more instant twist. When we recently took the e-tron Spyder for a spin, we were limited to just 40 miles per hour, but the Four-Ringed automaker tells us that a trip to 62 takes only 4.4 seconds.

And because this Spyder is a green monster, it can travel up to 30 miles on electric power alone. Using a mixture of the diesel and its lithium ion battery, it will consume on average a scant 2.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers.

That sounds like a lot of “too good to be true,” but Audi promises to be the leader in luxury electric cars by 2020, and a production version of this vehicle is expected for 2014. Hit the jump to watch new footage of the e-tron Spyder in motion. It might not be ready to go on sale, but it at least looks mighty fine on the roads of Malibu, California, near where we drove it.

Continue reading Audi e-tron Spyder struts its stuff in Malibu

Audi e-tron Spyder struts its stuff in Malibu originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Driving Audi’s Futurethink Diesel-Electric Roadster

At last September’s Paris Motor Show, we were thrilled to see this very concept car, the Audi e-tron Spyder. The crisp lines of its carbon composite exterior, its tapering side windows, its airflow vents cut in the hood, its almost impossibly clean and sleek interior treatment… all of it spoke strongly without trying too hard.

After the September 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show debut of the R8-based all-electric e-tron, we then got the surprise of seeing an even smaller one – also called “e-tron” (perhaps to confuse and/or not give too much away regarding the design’s important future) at last January’s Detroit Auto Show. This second electric car, a hardtop, carried two electric motors pushing the rear wheels (versus the four motors of the R8 e-tron’s all-wheel drive, an ongoing programming challenge referred to within Audi as e-Quattro).

The e-tron Spyder, however, is not just a roofless version of that stunning Detroit e-tron coupe, as the model we’re driving here comes with an all-new plug-in diesel hybrid-electric drivetrain, and it’s 5.1 inches longer with more wheelbase, along with being 1.2 inches wider. On the other hand, the current Audi TT is 4.7 inches longer than the e-tron Spyder, so we’re still operating on a very small scale here.

Our time in the driver’s seat of the e-tron Spyder was originally set for right after June’s 24-Hours of Le Mans, where the car successfully completed a parade lap for the almighty marketing department’s sake. Sadly, right as they were loading the car onto a transporter to get it on a plane and out here to SoCal, an incident occurred that left one of the rocker panels of the Spyder pretty beat up. Now that the summer holiday and big Frankfurt show push is done, we’ve been given another go.

Continue reading 2014 Audi e-tron Spyder [w/video]

2014 Audi e-tron Spyder [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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