If you happened to be one of the 150 million people watching last Sunday’s Super Bowl game, you just might have caught Audi’s Green Police TV spot. It’s garnered a lot of media attention on how Audi is appealing to those consumers that want to do something green, but just not at the level of an Al Gore messianic convert.
It’s a cute spoof on the greenie extremes. Audi is touting their new “clean diesel” A3, which coincidentally won Green Car of the year, beating out Toyota’s 2010 Prius model. You wonder if the judges knew about Toyota’s impending Prius recall? I’m a little shocked that a diesel won Green Car of the Year. The A3 does get 42 miles to the gallon on diesel, and the diesel is 20% cleaner in emissions than previous models, but it’s still a diesel fume-emitting car. Is it OK for “clean diesels” to be accepted as green cars? I don’t believe so. We need to lower and eliminate our emissions, and while this is an improvement over previous models, it still fall shorts of what a hybrid can do. The diesels do not turn off at a stoplight, or switch to electric mode to burn off excess battery storage; they still operate under the old principles. Now if Audi could create a hybrid diesel that would be a great step forward. The interesting thing about this Audi is that it’s not the best Audi could do. If you buy this in the US you can only get an automatic front wheel drive Audi A3 clean diesel. You cannot buy a stick all wheel drive clean diesel from Audi. If they had made a stick available, the mileage would have gone up to 50 mpg. That one is available in Europe but not here. Audi falls short. Trying to make you feel like it still OK to be some what green is just sending the wrong message. Where’s the real Green Police when you need them?
Photo: Audi A3TDI Photo Courtesy: Audi
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