By Karl Peskett.
A lady in Perth went to hop in her car last week to head home after some shopping. She pressed the unlock button on her key fob and nothing happened. So, she tried again. Still nothing. Strange, she thought, as she didn’t remember the battery going flat.
While she was in the middle of trying to manually unlock the car, another driver nearby also couldn’t get into their car. And then another. And another.
Dozens of shoppers in the Lakeside Joondalup car park were stranded, with all of their keyless entry devices disabled. Was it an act of sabotage? Was someone looking on in the distance, laughing at the hapless shoppers?
It seems not. On Friday, investigators from the Australia Media and Communications Authority attended the carpark out the front of the shopping centre to work out what was causing the jamming of the keyless entry signals.
The source was tracked to the Joondalup Chemist Warehouse which appeared to have installed a device recently that was inadvertently blocking the signals in a radius large enough to disable over one hundred vehicles. While the authority wouldn’t confirm what the device was (to give out that information would be quite dangerous), they did say they were working with Chemist Warehouse to isolate the issue and to ensure there wouldn’t be a repeat of the issues.
Ultratune in Joondalup also came to the rescue, offering to unlock vehicles free of charge while they were open.
Suddenly, anyone with an old-fashioned lock-and-key mechanism doesn’t feel so old-school.
Could the Audi TT be on the chopping block?
Since its inception in 1998, the Audi TT has been a fixture on our roads, and was the poster child for being an affordable, premium sports car. Since then, it has seen two more iterations, always using the clever platform that underpins the VW Golf, but certainly maximising that platform’s sporting potential.
However, the TT (which was named after the Isle of Mann race) may have a limited life span. In speaking with British publication Autocar, the chief executive officer of Audi stated that it may not continue much longer.
Bram Schot was asked about what was in store for the Audi TT and he said he thought “there’s a future for an icon, but I don’t know if it’s a TT. My heart bleeds when you ask that question”
“I’ve got some things cooking”, said Schot, “which could replace the TT, though not necessarily directly.”
Across the globe, sports car sales have been slowing, and brands are focussing on volume models and top-end vehicles, but for small run, niche machines, it’s just not as profitable anymore.
Audi is investing heavily in electrification, tech across the range and mobility. “Audi has to be really prominent in future, but electrification has to be financed. I cannot afford to be in every country, in every segment”, Schot said.
The return of the big-banger Touareg
Anyone who has driven a Volkswagen Touareg R50 will tell you that apart from the crazy metallic song its 5.0-litre V10 used to make, and the very competent air suspension, it was the torque that really made it stand out.
With around 850 newton metres, it slayed its competitors for pulling power and was amazingly capable off-road, too.
Then, came the next V8 diesel-powered Touareg, the limited run V8 TDI R-Line. This also had plenty of wallop from its oil-burning – but very efficient – V8 motor, but because of its small production run, there simply wasn’t enough to meet demand.
VW has now rectified that with another big-banger. And after this, there will be no more.
The newest addition to the Touareg range is also called V8 TDI, and the specs are impressive. But, then again, we’ve seen all this before.
The engine is a 4.0-litre V8, with 310kW and 900Nm. Sound familiar? That’s because you’ve seen those figures before, in the Audi SQ7 and the Bentley Bentayga Diesel. In both of those vehicles, the engine uses a tiny little electric compressor in addition to the two turbochargers, which bumps up the torque and dispenses with lag.
It’ll get to 100kmh in just 4.9 seconds and hit 250kmh without breaking a sweat. And because it’s the last V8 diesel you’ll see from the brand, it should become something of a collector’s car.
