New Audi SQ8 TDI
The SQ8 is a new high-performance version of the Audi Q8 SUV that is going on sale in Europe this summer, and we think it will come to the United States eventually. In Europe, the SQ8 has a turbo-diesel V-8 engine, but it will offer a gasoline engine in the U.S., likely a turbocharged V-6. Expect the SQ8 to arrive in the U.S. 2020, with more information coming later this year. The Q8 currently sits at the top of Audi's SUV range, and it's now reaching even higher with a new high-performance SQ8 variant. Set to go on sale in Europe this summer as an SQ8 TDI model with a powerful turbo-diesel V-8 engine, the SQ8 is all but confirmed for the U.S. Audi says that it will release information about the gasoline-powered SQ8 later, but we suspect that it will have the same turbocharged 2.9-liter V-6 engine in the new Audi S6 and S7 models. That engine, which has a 48-volt mild-hybrid setup with an electric supercharger, makes 450 horsepower and 443 lb-ft of torque and pairs with an eight-speed automatic transmission and Quattro all-wheel drive. The SQ8 TDI's 4.0-liter turbo-diesel V-8 makes 429 horsepower and a whopping 664 lb-ft of torque. Other than its powertrain, the eventual U.S.-bound SQ8 will be nearly identical to the European model shown here. Different wheels, a few extra vents, a different grille treatment, and quad exhaust tips round on the rather subtle exterior treatment for the S model, which isn't very easily distinguishable from the standard Q8. The interior has extra black trim and diamond-stitched leather, with bits of carbon-fiber trim and contrast stitching available as options. 80,000 range. We should hear more information about the U.S.-spec SQ8 by the end of this year.
Oceangoing ships could use a similar antenna to draw power from the network while at sea. In addition to electricity, these currents could carry information over great distances by bundling radio-frequency energy along with the power, much like the modern technology to send high-speed Internet data over power lines. Given his supporting experimental data and previous engineering accomplishments, there was little reason to doubt the veracity of Tesla鈥檚 claims. But building the power station, the huge wooden tower, and the fifty-five ton conductive dome depleted the original investment money relatively quickly, leading to chronic funding shortages. The complications were further compounded by a stock market crash in 1901 which doubled the cost of building materials and sent investors scurrying for financial cover. The Wardenclyffe team tested their tower a handful of times during construction, and the results were very encouraging; but the project soon devoured Tesla鈥檚 personal savings, and it became increasingly clear that no new investments were forthcoming.
In 1905, having exhausted all practical financial options, the construction efforts were abandoned. 鈥淚t is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive 鈥?blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discoverer鈥檚 keen searching sense. If Tesla鈥檚 plans had come to fruition, the pilot plant would have been merely the first of many. The fall of Wardenclyffe thrust the brilliant inventor into a deep depression and financial distress, and in the years that followed his colleagues began to seriously doubt his mental well-being. His eccentricities became increasingly exaggerated, underscored by his tendency to bring home and care for the injured pigeons he encountered during his daily visits to the park. He also developed an unnatural fear of germs, washing his hands compulsively and refusing to eat any food which had not been disinfected through boiling. But his mind remained pregnant with groundbreaking ideas, as he demonstrated when he described radar technology in 1917, almost twenty years before it became a reality.
In 1928, aged seventy-two years, he filed one of his last patents; it described an ingenious lightweight flying machine that was an early precursor to today鈥檚 tilt-rotor Vertical Short Takeoff and Landing (VSTOL) planes such as the V-22 Osprey. Nikola Tesla shuffled off this mortal coil in 1943, suffering a heart attack alone in his hotel room. Though he kept copious diaries of his experiments and ideas throughout his life, they were notoriously vague and lacking in technical details. He preferred to rely on his photographic memory for such nuances, therefore much of his knowledge went with him to the grave. Some modern investigations and calculations, however, do support Tesla鈥檚 contention that wireless electricity is not only feasible, but it may have even been a superior alternative to the extensive and costly grid of power lines which crisscross our globe today. Had Wardenclyffe been completed without interruption, Tesla may have once again managed to alter the course of history. Instant access to power, information, pirated phonograph cylinders, and lewd photos of bare-ankled floozies on the TeslaNet may have ushered in the Information Age almost a century ahead of schedule, making today鈥檚 world a very different place indeed. Perhaps one day we will enjoy the future that Tesla envisioned, albeit a bit behind schedule.