Audi's Mr. Engine pooh-poohs hybrid vehicles

First US Audi hybrids about 3 years away

If it were up to Audi's executive director of engine and powertrain technology for the Volkswagen Group, Wolfgang Hatz, Audi would probably never make any hybrid vehicles.

"Hybrid technology is a very expensive way to save a small amount of fuel. The cost/benefit analysis is quite on the expensive side, but we're politically pressed to develop hybrids by the U.S. market," Hatz recently told InsideLine.

"If someone said that every car must be a hybrid, the car industry would be bankrupt quicker than anything else. Even Toyota would have problems if they had to produce hybrids in high volumes. But politically we have to do a certain amount of hybrids."

While also admitting that diesel hybrid vehicles were the best course if purely considering fuel economy, Mr. Hatz, again, focused on expense.