2014 Audi A6 2.0t Premium Plus Quattro on 2040-cars

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Autoblog Podcast #344

Doug DeMuro from Plays With Cars, Infiniti Q50, Subaru BRZ STI, Porsche Macan
Episode #344 of the Autoblog podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth and Executive Editor Chris Paukert are joined by Doug DeMuro, author of Plays With Cars and prolific internet autowriting presence. Topics include the latest spy shots of the Porsche Macan, the 2014 Infiniti Q50, and the teaser images we've recently seen of a Subaru BRZ wearing STI badges. As always, we start with what's in the garage and finish up with some of your questions. For those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. You can follow along after the jump with our Q&A. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #344:

Audi re-illuminates Sport Quattro with Laserlight concept for CES

Automakers typically spend months working on a concept car, then unveil it at a car show and move on to the next. But Audi has demonstrated a propensity at refining the same concepts and bringing them back for more. Just look at how many time Audi iterated its E-Tron concept, and how many diesel R8s it toyed with. It brought the Italdesign Parcour out of retirement and rechristened it the Audi Nanuk, and it's been doing the same with the Quattro concept for the past several years. The German automaker rolled out the first Quattro concept back in 2010, and followed up with the reborn Sport Quattro concept less than a year ago. And now it's preparing to unveil yet another.
Called the Sport Quattro Laserlight concept, this time it's not as radical a departure from the Sport Quattro concept as that was from the first Quattro concept. In fact, there's really only one vital difference. That'd be the laser headlights "that leave all previous systems in the dark," according to the press release below. The system uses matrix LEDs around the outside of the element as low beams, and lasers on the inside for high beams. Measured in mere microns, the laser diodes are significantly smaller than LEDs, while lighting up the road ahead for nearly half a kilometers (1,640 feet), providing twice the lighting range and three times the brightness of LED high beams.
Otherwise the concept car you see here and which Audi will display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week is essentially the same as the one it showed in Frankfurt this past September. It's got the same measurements, wearing the same CFRP bodywork, with the same interior and the same 700-horsepower hybrid powertrain, only the yellow exterior has been repainted Plasma Red and the black interior redone in a more low-key Slate Grey, as you can see from the high-res image gallery above.

2014 Audi RS7 is a 189-mph terror

If you have a burning desire to take yourself and four friends to 189 miles per hour, the 2014 Audi RS7 Sportback can help you out. The luxury hatchback bowed at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show today, complete with a 560-horsepower twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 engine thrashing under the hood. Getting to 62 mph takes a shave under 3.9 seconds thanks in part to the 553 pound-feet of torque on hand from just 1,750 rpm. While the base car comes with an electronically limited top speed of 155 mph, customers can request the governor be removed by purchasing the dynamic package plus, upping the V-max to 189 mph.
Ludicrous? Sure, but Audi says the RS7 can also yield up to 25 mpg on the US scale. With a cylinder-on-demand system, the V8 can deactivate up to four cylinders by closing their valves. Once the driver gets frisky with the throttle, the engine automatically kicks from four-cylinder to eight-cylinder mode in a few hundredths of a second. The engine is bolted to an eight-speed automatic transmission, which pushes power to all four wheels. You can read the full press release below for more information, but we think you'll have a better time viewing our live shots from the show floor..