This week, Audi is conducting a 1,000-mile demonstration drive in California featuring two Audi A3 TDI® cars, the reigning 2010 Green Car of the Year®, fueled exclusively with synthetic RenDiesel® produced by Los Angeles-based Rentech Inc. Starting in Eureka, Calif., the journey’s aim is to spread the message that diesel technology has tremendous potential to make future inroads against the challenges of reducing fuel consumption and improving emissions. The trip will include a welcome reception from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the State Capitol and a high-level panel discussing diesel’s bright future at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. When it’s all completed, Audi will donate one of the A3 TDI cars to the museum for its alternative vehicles display. Throughout the Eureka! Diesel Drives the Future tour, we will provide impressions on the journey and the performance of the fuel in this award-winning Audi

Day Three:

Todd Kaho, Green Car Journal
“We started really early, fueling up at San Luis Obispo’s JB Dewar commercial fueling station where we had shipped four cans of RenDiesel fuel. A quick stop at Starbucks got us going. We headed out southbound on U.S. 101 toward Santa Barbara in light fog. There were 258 miles to cover before reaching our noon deadline in Rialto. We drove through rain as we approached L.A. and figured this could be a problem for our scheduled arrival, but we powered through and made it there in plenty of time.”

Ron Cogan, Editor and Publisher of the Green Car Journal
“We arrived in Rialto and met up in a park not far from the site of the outdoor press conference and ceremony. There, we found lots of Rialto police officers waiting to give us the full red-lights-and-siren escort arrival. These guys were pretty amazing. We’ve been in a few police escorts before with the California Fuel Cell Partnership rally and the Challenge Bibendum, but there we were one of many vehicles being escorted. This time, it was just us in our two matching black Audi A3 TDIs. Lines of cars were pulled to the curb as we passed and people craned their necks to see who we were. I felt like the President!”

Todd Kaho, Green Car Journal
“The City of Rialto pulled out all the stops, and for good reason. The planned Rentech synthetic fuel production facility could bring up to 1,000 new ‘green’ jobs to the area. Proclamations were presented to Hunt Ramsbottom from Rentech and Brad Stertz from Audi to commemorate the occasion. Then we were treated to another police escort out of town to help get us in motion. This was the longest day of the tour and we would be racking up nearly 500 miles of driving along the way.”

Ron Cogan, Editor and Publisher of the Green Car Journal
“We were able to get past the area’s problem traffic areas before most people were on the road and headed home, quite a relief. We stopped at Miramar Audi in San Diego to refuel with the RenDiesel shipped there, reaching our goal of traveling the complete length of California from top to bottom … over 1,000 miles. A reporter even came out to document our arrival for San Diego’s’ two network affiliates.”

Todd Kaho, Green Car Journal
“We may have made our goal of reaching San Diego, but our day was not over. Now we had to double back to L.A. for our Green Car of the Year Tour wrap-up event the next day. Timing is everything when it comes to rush hour traffic in Southern California, so we ‘refueled’ ourselves with a nice dinner before getting on the freeway. That was a good strategic move since most traffic was over by the time we were done. On the final leg from San Diego to L.A., the RenDiesel-fueled Audi A3 TDI achieved the highest average fuel economy of the trip with a combined 43.7 mpg showing on the trip computer.”