Audi finds an alternative way to win
Yes, it happened a couple of weeks ago and 6,000 miles away, but this is interesting. Audi won the the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year. Sure, whoopee and all that. However, the fuel used by Audi’s R10 TDI race car was not distilled from crude oil.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the world’s most iconic motor races and anyone who caught it on the Speed channel would have seen the cars keeping up a ridiculously fast pace -- even in the rain. This is about as serious and hardcore as motorsport gets. And not a drop of gasoline was burned by the winning car.
The R10 TDI runs on diesel, but not just any old diesel. It used Shell’s BTL biodiesel (BTL stands for biomass to liquid). The other good thing is that it isn’t based on corn or anything else edible. It uses things like wood scraps instead. Compared to traditional diesel, this fuel can emit almost 90 percent less carbon dioxide. For the race, Audi used a combination of BTL and GTL (gas to liquid) -- which is a synthetic fuel made from natural gas.
Owners of diesel-powered cars won’t be pumping BTL any time soon, but its viability has now been proven. When the Audi Q7 TDI comes to North America early next year, it could be one of the few sensible ways to run an SUV.
Photo: Audi
