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2014 Audi RS7 [w/video]

The subject of what makes up a true "supercar" is a difficult one, fraught with personal connotations and the rare ability to bring close colleagues into heated confrontation with one another in the blink of an eye. I say this because, while the 2014 Audi RS7 most certainly does not make the supercar cut on a few levels to my way of thinking - not rare enough, expensive enough or wearing an appropriately evocative body - it is unquestionably an "everyday supercar" of remarkable ability. And, pertinently, it is one that proved willing to ply its trade in every version of winter that Michigan had to offer it.
I had winter four ways during my week-long loan with the RS7. A period of crisp temperatures and dry roads, presided over by light blue skies as wide as the horizon, soon gave way to spitting, freezing rain blanketed in slightly misleading warmer air. Then there was snow. Not the massive blanket we saw in the first week of the New Year, but more than enough to see my neighbors stocking up on Ice Melt and replacing their shovels for the season. Finally, temperatures dropped to the mid teens, cottony snow compressed into a hard pack and all residual moisture on the mostly cleared roads morphed into the very slickest of ice. Timeless curses were uttered by cranky commuters in smoking breaths. Pure Michigan.

2015 Audi Q3 is ready to woo America's young and upwardly mobile

You can hardly blame Audi for its decision to finally bring its Q3 compact crossover to America, even though it's been on sale in other global markets since 2012. CUVs of all stripes are red hot, and the number of players in the US entry-level premium segment is mushrooming. Rapidly growing Audi simply can't afford to be left out of the discussion in favor of vehicles like the BMW X1, Land Rover Range Rover Evoque, and even small near-luxury entries like the Buick Encore, if only because capturing these customers could result in subsequent sales of more profitable models down the road.
Audi evidently intends to attract these new, younger customers by spoiling them in decidedly unGermanic fashion: by offering lots of standard equipment. Peruse the spec sheet on base models from rivals and you'll see things like manually adjusted faux leather seats, conventional projector headlamps, and little in the way of frills. By comparison, the 2015 Q3 comes with an embarrassment of standard features, including heated and power-articulated leather seats, panoramic moonroof, Xenon headlamps with LED accents and keyless start.
First impressions of the four-cylinder, 200-horsepower Q3 revealed here at the Detroit Auto Show are very positive, with a rakish (if overly familiar) shape and a fair amount of utility with up to 48.2 cubic feet of storage with the rear seats folded. If Audi can price the Q3 similarly to the entry-level BMW X1 sDrive28i ($31,825 delivered) when it arrives this fall, we think it'll sell like hotcakes - just like its Q5 big brother.

Audi pushing DOT to allow its sequential LED turn signals [w/videos]

Still in the process of trying to get its trick LED Matrix Beam headlights legalized in the US, Audi is now trying to get its front and rear sequential LED turn signals approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Just like its auto-dimming headlights, the sequentially illuminating turn signals don't meet NHTSA's Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108.
The problem, according to Automotive News, is that the individual lighting elements are too small to meet current US safety regulations. The rule states that each lamp should be 22 square centimeters (8.6 square inches) and the whole lighted combined area must be 50 square centimeters (19.6 square inches). In the individual sequence, Audi's lights are much smaller than that. As for the Ford Mustang, which has had sequential turn signals since 2010, this system is legal since the first lens is large enough to meet the required size, so the other two lights really aren't even necessary.
It sounds like it could be some time before we see these turn signals on Audis in the US, which is a shame because in addition to their styling bebefuts, we think they're more effective at signaling the vehicle's intended direction of travel, and they do a better job of grabbing the eye. Scroll down to watch a pair of videos showing the headlights in action on the redesigned A8/S8 as well as the recently updated R8.