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“Decarbonize” – it’s a word you’ll hear a lot in the future as automakers gradually discontinue combustion engines to make way for a variety of EVs. Audi has jumped on the electric bandwagon by announcing that 2025 will be the last year when Four Rings will introduce a new combustion engine car. Starting in 2026, the Ingolstadt-based company will only launch EVs.
In 2033, the production of cars that run on fossil fuels will end. However, Audi says ICE could last for a few more years in China, depending on customer demand. Meanwhile, the German luxury brand is updating some of its widely criticized diesel engines to run cleaner by making them compatible with renewable fuels.
Compatible with the V6 TDI producing up to 282 horsepower (210 kilowatts), HVO stands for water-treated vegetable oil. This is Audi’s intermediate method of curbing emissions before pulling the plug on the oil burner. Many of the six-cylinder engine configurations have been changed to run on more sustainable fuels and have left the factory in this cleaner setup since mid-February.
Compared to the old diesel, Audi claims CO2 emissions are down by 70 to 95 percent. There is also a side advantage to adopting HVO as it has a 30 percent higher cetane rating, thus improving the combustion process. That should pay dividends during cold winter mornings, but there are only about 600 fuel stations in Europe where you can find HVO. Most of them are in Scandinavia and only a few are at home in Germany.
HVO-compatible TDI engines are currently available for models A4 through A8, along with the Q7 and Q8. Audi engineers have prioritized the most popular diesel-fueled models, which is why the Q5 will follow early next month. The A6 Allroad will receive the same treatment this summer. Elsewhere, the Volkswagen Touareg V6 TDI could also use sustainable fuels.
The latest decarbonization process follows a similar method implemented in June 2021 for the Q2, A3, and Q3 models equipped with a four-cylinder turbodiesel engine. Several of the four TDIs in the A4 to A7 plus Q5 models were made HVO-compatible in select countries last summer.
In the longer term, Audi and the entire Volkswagen Group will introduce combustion engines developed to accept renewable synthetic fuels.
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