2012 Audi R8 5.2 Fsi Quattro R-tronic Coupe**low Miles**navigation*heated Seats* on 2040-cars

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VW Group exploring F1 options, would likely wait until Ecclestone is out

The real hurdle is that Volkswagen overlord Ferdinand Piech doesn't like Bernie Ecclestone on a personal or professional level. Superbugs. They are antiobiotic-resistant bacteria and viruses, fiends that defy eradication no matter how much counteracting agent you throw at them. Reports that Audi is going to join Formula One? They are the superbugs of rumors; for five years they've been coursing through the blood of motorsport, and no amount of denials or Audi's continued non-presence in F1 has been able to make them go away. Not even a month ago we contracted another bout of it, courtesy of Auto Express, citing sources who said Audi would leave endurance racing and DTM - handing Le Mans over to Porsche, instead of the other way around - and buy either Red Bull or Toro Rosso for an entry in 2016 with an in-house powerplant. Within 24 hours of that story, Audi Sport sent the tweet, "Audi in F1? There rumors keep appearing with regularity since years. It's pure speculation again this time and without any foundation." Now, few things are impossible in F1, but lining up on the grid in 2016 is not far away from needing to be ready tomorrow, in F1 terms, which is why these announcements come long in advance. Honda, you'll recall, gave us almost two years' notice of its F1 reunion and Porsche gave us three years notice about Le Mans. A brand-new report in the BBC says that Audi is using new hire and ex-Ferrari technical director Stefano Domenicali to lead a feasibility study into an F1 program. According to that story, the real hurdle to the foray, however, is that Volkswagen Group overlord Ferdinand Piech doesn't like F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone on a personal or professional level, so one of them would need to leave his position before Audi could say yes, feasibility be damned. Since we're talking about two men who define professional longevity, that day might not come soon. The BBC story goes on to say that Martin Winterkorn, head of the VW Group management board, would like to see the group in F1, and that if it happened it would be with a "car designed and made in Germany." Ladies and gentlemen, you know where to file this one...

Audi R8 LMX illuminates the City of Light with lasers

Hard as it may seem to believe, the Audi R8 has been around for the better part of a decade. But does that make us love it any less? Hardly, especially not when Audi keeps rolling out ever-more enticing versions like the one you see here.
Debuting at the Paris Motor Show, the new Audi R8 LMX is the most powerful version of the supercar we've seen yet, thanks to a 5.2-liter V10 engine tuned to deliver 570 metric horsepower. That's 562 by our count, making it ten horses more potent than the R8 GT, or 37 more than the standard ten-cylinder R8 5.2 FSI - enough to propel the LMX to 62 in 3.4 seconds.
That's not all that sets the LMX apart, however, as Audi has fit it with cutting-edge laser-beam headlights. It comes exclusively as a coupe in Ara Blue with carbon fiber trim, special wheels, red brake calipers and a black leather cockpit. Only 99 examples will be made, and with those laser headlights banned in the US, your best chance of seeing one is in the gallery of live images above.

When Android Automotive goes in the dash, Google wins — and automakers lose data

You've gotta hand it to Google for the way the Silicon Valley tech giant has made indelible inroads into the car on multiple fronts. The most obvious is with its pioneering self-driving car technology that's caused car companies to get their act together on autonomous vehicles — and also collaborate with Google. Google has more directly extended its influence and data-mining capabilities into the car with its Android Auto smartphone-projection platform that most major automakers have adopted along with Apple's CarPlay. And now it's preparing to dig even deeper into dashboards by deploying its open-source operating system, Android Automotive, beginning with Audi and Volvo. Volvo recently announced that its next-generation Sensus infotainment system will run Android Automotive as an OS and include Google's Play Store for cloud-based content, Maps for navigation and Google Assistant for voice recognition, which can even command a car's climate control. By embedding Google in the dash, Volvo says owners will get an improved connected experience. "Bringing Google services into Volvo cars will accelerate innovation in connectivity and boost our development in applications and connected services," Volvo senior vice president of R&D Henrik Green said in a statement. "Soon, Volvo drivers will have direct access to thousands of in-car apps that make daily life easier and the connected in-car experience more enjoyable." Having Android Automotive onboard could benefit drivers — and provide a big win for Google, since it opens a deep and lucrative new data-mining vein for the company. But it's a wave of a white flag for car companies when it comes to delivering their own cloud-based content and services. It also represents a massive data giveaway and, for Audi, a reversal of earlier reservations about letting Google get too much access to car data. Not long after Android Auto and Apple CarPlay were introduced in 2014 and most automakers eagerly embraced the technologies, several German automakers second-guessed their decision when they realized what was at stake: data. At a conference in Berlin in 2015, Audi CEO Rupert Stadler said car owners "want to be in control of their data, and not subject to monitoring." A few months earlier, Stadler stated that "the data that we collect is our data and not Google's.