Audi luft behind

Audi is about to charge back after being left behind in the aerodynamic race, its technical boss has claimed.

Dr Ulrich Hackenberg recently insisted Audi’s aero performance would improve dramatically with each new model generation. That won’t be difficult, with every single current Audi production car posting worse Cd aerodynamic figures than the equivalent Mercedes-Benz and most current BMWs.

While Mercedes-Benz has tackled sleek aerodynamics as a short cut to greater fuel economy and lower CO2 emissions, Audi has focused on cutting weight instead. Still, where the most efficient versions of the new C-Class and B-Class Mercedes-Benz models sit at 0.24 for the Cd values, Audi’s newest model, the TT, will launch with 0.30 – which is worse than Audi’s ground-breaking 100 model from 30 years ago.

Mercedes-Benz sources insist that Audi’s models are all worse than the comparative Daimler brands (Mercedes tests all cars sold in Europe in its wind tunnel for back-to-back analysis), and it’s a charge Audi won’t deny.

“We are making progress,” Dr Hackenberg insisted. “If you want to realise the CO2 targets, you have to look for all the responsible sources.

“With aerodynamics, it’s always a question of the generation of the model and where it is in the cycle. Cars get better at it with every generation.”

Sources at Audi say a turning point in refocusing the company’s blasé aero efforts came with the B-Class of 2012. Several senior Audi engineering executives refused to believe the claimed 0.24 Cd figure until Mercedes-Benz’s head of aerodynamics drove his B-Class company car to Audi’s wind tunnel so they could independently verify the number (which they did, coming up with 0.238).

Another troubling factor is that a new fuel-economy standard, containing requirements for a higher speeds for the extra-urban and combined tests, is scheduled to replace the current European NEDC (New European Driving Cycle) in 2017, so aero performance is about to take centre stage in Europe.

“We are investing more and more in aerodynamics,” Dr Hackenberg said. “We are investing in people and improving wind tunnels and computing.

“It’s a question of the shape of the car and how we make the underfloor and the design of the wheel housing, too.

“Aero will be more important in 2017 than it is now and we will have an Ultra version for every mainstream model, with a lower Cd and some specific underfloor parts. With the next generations coming through, it will be better.”

While BMW and Mercedes-Benz both have production aero devices to channel air around the front wheels instead of creating wheelarch turbulence, Audi has nothing. While its two primary premium rivals have production flaps or louvres to keep unnecessary cooling air out of the engine bay, Audi has no such thing. Nor does it have plans for a production car to take advantage of the European Union’s 2015 law relaxing its ban on tiny rear-facing cameras to replace side mirrors.

“If you can see that the gap between where we are and where we need to be on CO2 by 2018 is 100 percent, we have to make 40-50 percent by our classical powertrains, and then there is 20 percent in aerodynamics and rolling resistance and that leaves a gap of 30 percent to be filled by alternative energies like hybrid and gas and electric.

“If I made a car today, I already have the ideas from that and with the engineers for the next generation.

“We only stop because at some point you have to start industrialisation, but we take forward all the cluster of ideas that we didn’t have time to implement. The problem is never a shortage of ideas.”