Photo: newspressusa.com
Volkswagen and Audi sell more TDI clean diesels in America than any other company. But that's still about 10% of their overall figures, if not less. That's because Americans believe hybrids are the only fuel sippers on the market. But VW doesn't make that many hybrids."No problem" said somebody at VW USA, "we've got other stuff to show you that's just as good as a hybrid if not better."
This is the Passat Bluemotion Concept presented at the 2014 Detroit Auto Show. In fact, it's not really a concept. It's actually just a US-spec Passat with a different engine.
Instead of using electricity to be green, the Passat concept's engine is a 1.4-liter turbo that deactivates two of its cylinders when they aren't needed, under light highway loads for instance. This effectively turns this into a 0.7 TSI.
Jokes aside, the Passat Bluemotion is filled with very serious technology which is already on sale in many European cars, notably the Golf 7 and the Audi A3.
This is the first application of cylinder deactivation, of Cylinder on Demand (COD) as they call it, on a four-cylinder engine. Volkswagen say you can expect to get up to 42 mpg highway with this unit, which isn't bad for a midsize sedan.
Instead of using electricity to be green, the Passat concept's engine is a 1.4-liter turbo that deactivates two of its cylinders when they aren't needed, under light highway loads for instance. This effectively turns this into a 0.7 TSI.
Jokes aside, the Passat Bluemotion is filled with very serious technology which is already on sale in many European cars, notably the Golf 7 and the Audi A3.
This is the first application of cylinder deactivation, of Cylinder on Demand (COD) as they call it, on a four-cylinder engine. Volkswagen say you can expect to get up to 42 mpg highway with this unit, which isn't bad for a midsize sedan.
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