The Audi A6 hybrid has arrived in Malaysia. This luxury sedan will be sending BMW. Volvo, Lexus, Infiniti and Mercedes sales people running to their bosses seeking a solution to their sales loses. Why? Well to start its selling price is way below the immediate competition and some others in its segment.
This is because, the Audi A6 hybrid uses an efficient parallel hybrid concept: Its combustion engine, a 211bhp 2.0 TFSI, works together with an electric motor that delivers 45bhp and 211 Nm of torque. The electric motor sits directly behind the TFSI, occupying the space of the torque converter upstream of the slick shifting 8-speed tiptronic gearbox. This gearbox sends torque to the front wheels.
A crash-protected area of the luggage compartment houses a light, compact lithium-ion battery that provides 1.3 kWh of nominal power and generates 39 kW. Depending on requirements, it is air-cooled in two ways, by means of a blower from the interior or by means of an internal refrigerant circuit coupled to the automatic air conditioning system.
This technology largely maintains the rechargeable battery within the appropriate temperature range, thereby ensuring that the vehicle operates on electric power a comparatively large percentage of the time.
The Audi A6 hybrid can achieve speeds of up to 100km/h purely on electricity; at a constant speed of 60km/h, it has a range of 3km. It can also operate with the combustion engine only or in hybrid mode; in the deceleration phases, it recovers power and activates both the engine and the electric motor together when accelerating quickly. Special indicators on the instrument cluster and on the MMI monitor provide of detailed display of the different driving conditions.
This Audi A6 hybrid provides the power of a V6, combined with the fuel efficiency of a four-cylinder engine. It accelerates in 7.3 seconds from zero to 100km/h, top speed is 238km/h and the average fuel consumption is only 6.2liters per 100 km, a CO2 emissions level of 142 grams per km (228.53 g/mile).
Euromobil has a lot of units ready for sale (more than 1500 units over the next few months) and with more than 400 units already sold to eager buyers; it looks like a runaway success for this A6 hybrid. The BMW 5-Series and the Mercedes Benz E-Class will see a drop in sales like never before.
