Audi Unveils a TDI RS5

To celebrate Audi's TDI engine, the Ingolstadt manufacturer just unveiled an interesting concept: it started life as a standard RS5, but the engineers decided to drop the 420 HP V8 out of it, and shoehorn in a diesel engine instead. Not any diesel, though: it is a V6 strapped with not one, not two, but three turbos!

To be precise, one of those turbos is in fact a supercharger powered by an electric motor. It is mainly used at very low revs, to help the turbos spool up. The end result is an augmentation of torque, and a higher total output since the turbines can be made larger.

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The total power for this mechanical contraption is 380 HP with an astonishing 553 lb-ft of torque! All this is sent to the Quattro system through an 8-speed automatic gearbox, Audi having wisely chosen to ditch the dual-clutch transmission for such a high-torque application.

This triple-turbo RS5 can sprint from 0 to 100 in 4 seconds flat, on its way to a top speed of 280 km/h. Even more impressive, it can sip diesel when it chooses to, with a fuel consumption of 5 L/100 km.

We can be reasonably sure that Audi won't put this car into production, but there is a good chance that the electric supercharger will find its way under the hood of regular cars in the near future.