Sunday, 29 September 2013

Driving Audi's TDI wonder from LA to NY in search of the recordbooks


There is no wrong way to cross the continental US. Many people fly, countless drive. The hardcore walk or bike. Horses, motorcycles and hot air balloons? Do what you've got to do.

But what if you don't really have to cross? What if you just want to? And you want to do it while proving a point? It's actually not that hard to drive from LA to NYC in two days, given the right mindset. In most cars, it's also not all that difficult to do it while beating the EPA fuel economy numbers. The challenge is to do both at once, and if that's your target, then you could do a lot worse than joining hypermiler Wayne Gerdes and the CleanMPG crew in three 2014 Audi TDI diesel-equipped vehicles – a Q5, an A7 and an A6 - in a record-setting 48-hour drive. We called it Truth in 48, but it turns out we didn't even need that much time.

You know how the route from work to home or school to home gets redundant after a while, how you can sort of see a particular business before you turn the corner? How you know exactly where the potholes and the streetlights are? I'm pretty sure that the entire US Interstate highway system is that familiar to Gerdes, who regularly does one of these stunt drives in a never-ending effort to bring attention to the simple fact that you can save a whole bunch of fuel simply by changing the way you drive. He owns multiple Guinness World Records. His online forum, CleanMPG, is a clearinghouse for greener driving tips and is a gathering place for people who like to squeeze every last yard out of a tank of fuel. They're also pretty fun people, which is important when you're cheek-by-jowl in a moving car with them for two days straight.

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