[Words/Photos: Mike Juergens]
“It feels like a Finnish Sauna,” exclaimed Blake, my driving partner, regarding the heat inside our little A3 TDI. What have we gotten ourselves into? We wondered. Hypermiling, defined here as “beating the EPA’s official numbers” is some serious work. It’s an activity that most would write off as tedious—until you are in the middle of it and realize just how nerve-racking it can be. You quickly start to miss things such as air conditioning and the passing lane. Hills start to feel like mountains, particularly since the efficiency readout starts ticking down. During our journey, this screen would make it painfully obvious how badly we were underperforming. To become efficient, you give up creature comforts and risk becoming a nuisance to everyone on the interstate. Especially, the 18-wheelers—trust me, when the speed limit says 75 that’s precisely the rate of speed they try to maintain. We were slow moving intruders on their land.
It’s rare that you will receive an invite that asks, “From the desert to the sea, how far can you go on one tank?” My attention peaked as I opened up Google maps and calculated the distance from Albuquerque, New Mexico to San Diego, California. Depending on the route it could range from 770 to 840 miles, but the details would be unknown until we arrived. Some quick math suggested the A3 would need to average well over 60 mpg to make it to the finish. Impossible? Probably, but we could not pass up this opportunity.
After arriving in Albuquerque and dining with all the other journalists, we met our proverbial nemesis, The Ford Aspire “It” which Blake quickly dubbed “The Aspire of Damocles,” a nod to the sword of Damocles. This vehicle would be stalking us, towed from behind a Q7 TDI driven by Audi Chief Communications Officer Joe Jacuzzi—until the moment the first team ran out of fuel. This upped the stakes, as getting behind the wheel of the Aspire became the goal of some team members, including my driving partner, Blake Z. Rong of Autoweek.
The next morning Audi execs gave us the full rundown of our drive, and hypermiling guru Wayne Gerdes communicated his broad knowledge by explaining jargon such as ridge riding, hard deck, long glide, stale greens, maintenance lane dive, and the famous reverse pass. With these phrases are written down in our notebooks, we knew we had the information we would need to cover all 834 miles without incident. Day One would be roughly 8.5 hours and 380 miles of driving; it would be the most critical day of the drive if we were going to make it to the finish on one tank of diesel.
We would experience elevations as high as 7,904 feet and as low as -143 feet below sea level. The total elevation drop from Albuquerque to San Diego would be around 5,000 feet. Instead of using only highways, the Audi staff decided to mix it up to showcase the A3 sedan’s full range of capabilities. There would be switchbacks and long downhill sections that would allow us to coast and take advantage of the fuel cut off, as well as plenty of rolling hills, which would challenge our driving skills—and our sanity.
Day One: Game On!
How difficult would it be drive 834 miles from Albuquerque to San Diego in an all-new Audi A3 TDI sedan on one tank of diesel? We were about to find out.
Just before 9:00 AM “Team Unintended Deceleration” set out. Our route would take us from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Sedona, Arizona with a lunch stop at the Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano. Roughly 20 miles on I-40 W, Sir Mix A Lot’s anthem “Baby Got Back” greeted us. From here on out this trip could only get better. It was 70 miles into the drive we before we were finally able to surpass 50 mpg, which by our calculations, was not good enough. We started to embrace Wayne’s advice. We slowed to 5-10 mph under the speed limit, manually shifting while sticking to the right lane, and using our hazards when necessary.
After 78 miles it was time to turn off the highway and onto NM-53 W, which would become our first real challenge. We would ascend from 6,300 feet to over 8,000 feet in just 25 miles to reach our first stop. I was careful and short-shifted to sixth gear trying to preserve our 52 mpg. It was in vain, as we approached the driveway we had dropped down to 49 mpg. We explored the Ice Caves and after a quick lunch of brisket and bacon-wrapped shrimp, we grabbed a goody-bag of beef & pork jerky, and trail mix, and were on our way. The final destination of the day: Sedona, Arizona.
The descent back down to 6,000 feet would allow us to achieve 55 mpg. We would also start to grasp the beauty that the American Southwest has to offer. The mountain ranges and blue skies were spectacular; this was my first time in the Southwest, and I couldn’t think of a better way to experience it.
As we reached the Zuni Reservation, we hit 55 mpg aided by the flat land and our highly tuned driving skills. However, the lack of air conditioning was starting to take its toll on us. Following Wayne’s advice, we cracked all the windows to get the air circulating and cool off. As we approached 165 miles and neared the Arizona border, driving became wearisome. Rolling hills provided an excellent backdrop for our drive, but they where also our worst nightmare. The navigation screen gave us hope in this stressful environment as the miles ticked down to the next stop. Balancing engine RPMs, the transmission gears, and our fuel consumption, we were thoroughly entrenched in a battle between Mother Nature and German engineering.
Back on I-40 West through Petrified Forrest National Park, we came across a few 18-wheelers with aero kits attached. We attempted to use their clean air and the flat terrain to our advantage. It worked as we climbed to 55 mpg; however, in a moment of weakness, we switched on the AC, a move that would later end badly for us. After 330 miles we headed toward our final destination of the day by turning off onto AZ-89 S, a seven-mile rapid decent from 6,900 feet to 4,500 feet from Flagstaff into Sedona. This was my favorite drive so far, and moments before 6:00 PM we arrived at the Enchantment Resort; a name perfectly suited to the site.
Before dinner Audi presented the Challenge results: we finished last of nine places with an average of 54.6 mpg, which was 6.7 mpg behind the leading team with 61.3 mpg. There was no hope of making it to San Diego—at best we could make it bail out point five, which was 93 miles from the finish. Blake was set on driving the Aspire, so he approached me with a crazy idea: we should cannonball run the last 461 miles. However, I didn’t want to finish dead last. We had been told Day Two would be our toughest challenge yet, but after a dinner of rattlesnake chili and cold smoked bison, we decided to give it our best shot.
Day Two: 461 Miles to Go
We decided to make a valiant effort to reach the finish point in San Diego even though our numbers were not in our favor. Within a few miles of leaving the hotel, we were already at 57 mpg and 3,600 feet—the highest fuel economy we’d been able to achieve so far through the trip.
We knew the next section of highway through Prescott, and the Prescott Valley would contain a major climb as we started ascending to just over 5,100 feet in 40 miles. The slow, gradual rise was stressful as we watched the efficiency drop to 51 mpg. The two lane mountain passes were steep and filled with switchbacks. But yet, another team thwarted our plans to use as much momentum as possible to reach the bottom of the valley.
Within 71 miles we had descended to 1,700 feet into the valley below. With the help of some momentum, we were able to climb back to 57 mpg.
The next 80 miles would be monotonous; it was flatland, and the only cars we saw were other Audi TDIs. Team “The Circumsizers,” which consisted of an author and jeopardy champ Neal Pollock, and Jason Torchinsky from Jalopnik were meandering at a walking pace through the desert highways, although this would pay off for them later. I set the cruise control for 45 and watched our mileage climb to 60 mpg. We passed some of the most rural pockets of civilization that I’d ever seen, except some hunting cabins in Northern Maine, but even those were not as remote as this. It had been about four hours and cellphone service was impossible to find except for a stray edge connection. Our communications and taunting of the other teams via Twitter became extremely limited.
Just outside of Parker, we hit 61 mpg. Fueled by the entire Megadeth anthology for a while we felt refreshed and hoped we might make it to finish… until we entered Interstate 10 and reached mile marker 0 of the California border. Our previous efforts felt in vain as we were forced to accelerate and hover around the freeway speed limit. Otherwise an 18-wheeler would crush us. Luckily, we quickly approached our lunch stop.
The local sheriff greeted us, as he received calls regarding the amount of SUVs, and people wearing radios. The locals thought the secret service was in town. Nope, it was just the TDI Challenge. We scarfed down our lunch and Blake insisted on applying painters’ tape to the seams of our car to help reduce drag (Later we found out that that friction the tape created hurt us – thanks, Alex!). We soldiered on with our streamlined A3 through farmlands, when Blake informed me that this state produces nearly half of US-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables, and 1 in 6 people live in California. The farmlands quickly gave way to Imperial Sand Dunes with such attractions as a rather large strip-mine, the Glamis beach store and the “King of the Hammers” off-road race.
The rolling terrain was not kind to us, and we were still 33 miles to bailout point 4 just outside of El Centro when we hit distance to empty 0. Averaging 63 mpg, we knew we could make it as there was at least one gallon left past DTE 0. We had the decision to make: would we stop and take on fuel or continue to limber on fumes and risk running dry while trying to climb?
After 717 miles and an overall average of 58.6 mpg we ultimately decided to stop and take on fuel and to finish in 7th of 9 places. In hindsight, I will stand by that choice as we then attacked some of the most beautiful twisty roads of the trip and got a feel for the dynamics of the new A3 sedan. Even sticking strictly to the posted 35 mph speed limits was a rush due to the sweeping off-camber turns, the endless torque from the A3’s potent power-train and the brakes’ impressive stopping power. Driving dynamically, we still didn’t drop below 45 mpg. The A3 TDI is the perfect mix of dynamism and efficiency.
Onward, we approached our next planned spot and a change of cars. We exchanged our trusty steed of almost 800 miles and an overage average of 54 mpg for an Audi A3 Cabrio 2.0T quattro. It felt wonderful to breath fresh air and feel the wind. The last of the route took us close to the Mexican Border across the Coronado Bridge to our final destination, the Beach Village at The Del.
So is it possible to drive 835 miles on a tank of diesel? It sure is. Would I attempt something like this again in the future? In a heartbeat, I would. If not for the reason that in our daily lives we typically get caught up rushing from place to place and our car becomes nothing more than an appliance. My parents would always recount stories of everyone loading into the family car and go on a road trip. This seems to be something that, along with the appreciation for the Audi Avant, has dwindled. (Maybe there’s a correlation here?) Looking back, driving has been the best way to broaden my horizons, and it’s not something that I do often enough. I left the TDI Challenge with a great feeling of having experienced a part of our country that I’d always just flown over. We could all benefit from a road trip once in a while.
[Disclosure: Audi wanted us to participate in the TDI Challenge so badly that they flew us to Albuquerque, New Mexico and put us up in the nicest hotels for the 3 nights of the trip]