10 vehicles that mix speed and fuel-efficiency
Both play important roles in how engineers develop increasingly efficient, quick cars.
Peter Schwarzenbauer, an Audi board member, announces Audi has improved fleet-wide fuel efficiency by 30 percent since 1995, due mostly to integration of diesel engines like the one developed in the super-fast R15 TDI race car (600 horsepower, 800 foot-pounds of torque and a top speed of 205 mph ).
The $114,200 Audi R8, No. Nine on our list, has profited from similar innovation. It uses direct injection in its 4.2L V8 engine to gain a combined 15.5 mpg and a 0 to 60 acceleration of 4.4 seconds.
Rob Moran, a speaker for Mercedes-Benz, says engineers at the company’s high-performance arm, AMG, focus on using differently tuned transmission modes and start-stop functions to make automobiles like the SLK55 AMG (No.