by Liz Turner
On the way to an Audi trip looking at future tech, I fretted they might not have a jetpack my size. I was the only female, after all.
I was, however, thrilled to hear we would be driving over the bridge from Copenhagen to Malmo (the third star of Scandi-drama The Bridge). I could shout ‘Fit!’ and ‘Tak!’ and pretend I was driving a classic Porsche, although I don’t think I could carry off Saga’s leather trousers.
The drive over the long, long suspension bridge in a diesel-powered Audi Q5 was actually supremely relaxing, and the blue water either side glittered in sunshine never seen in scandi-dramas.
It turned out this was Audi’s vision of the future. No jetpacks, or any individual flying options at all. Haven’t they seen Blade Runner, or any science fiction at all? Nope. Audi reckons clean, quiet diesels will still be powering cars for the foreseeable future. But it does go all sci-fi when they talk about tiny critters helping them to make designer diesel and ethanol.
Helpful mini beasts…
The company is working with the US biotech firm Joule to produce synthetic fuels: Audi e-diesel and Audi e-ethanol. They are farming single cell micro-organisms, which use sunlight and carbon dioxide to form carbohydrates and grow – just like plants. Joule’s boffins have modified this ‘oxygenic photosynthesis’ process so the bugs produce alkanes, important components of diesel fuel.
Audi e-diesel is free from sulphur and other pollutants so it will be clean at the tailpipe and during production. The micro-organisms need water, but it can be waste water, and they only excrete as much carbon dioxide as they take in during production.
Projections indicate that a car using Audi e-diesel will have a similar carbon footprint to a battery electric car using electricity from renewable sources.
The next challenge is to create the fuel in bulk. At least it can be mixed with ordinary diesel, so cars wouldn’t have to run exclusively on the fuel.
For now, diesel cars are much cleaner than in the days when they smoked and left black smears on the car, and they give punchy performance. Audi’s latest engines have traps for nasty particulate matter, and use a solution called AdBlue to reduce the emissions of oxides of nitrogen. This allows them to meet the tough in-coming Euro 6 regulations.
Of course, Audi is not the only manufacturer working to meet the new standards, and there are some truly excellent diesels around. So if you’re buying a car and will be doing quite a lot of miles, check if there’s an equivalent diesel, and test drive it before you buy.