Like other ER-EVs such as the +Chevrolet Volt and +Fisker Automotive Karma, the A1 was designed to be driven electrically by a moderately sized battery that would provide about 30 miles of range. When the battery was nearly depleted, the a small gas engine would fire up to drive a generator to sustain the charge of the battery and keep it going.

Unlike most of the other ER-EVs we've seen, the Audi engineering team led at the time by Michael Dick took a pass on using a conventional piston engine for the range-extender. Instead they opted to use a tiny 254cc Wankel rotary mounted under the rear cargo floor. 

Unfortunately, earlier this year, top management at the Volkswagen Group decided that they no longer wanted Audi going off on engineering tangents. Instead, they would be homogenized with the work going on in the rest of the group. Mr. Dick was retired and replaced by former Porsche R&D chief and then Bentley CEO Wolfgang Durheimer. 

This week Audi revealed a revamped version of the A1 e-tron, with what is now dubbed a Dual-Mode Hybrid system. This is effectively the same system that was originally shown in the VW Golf Twin-Drive back in 2008. The main difference is that the four cylinder diesel used in the Golf has been replaced with a shorter 3-cylinder gasoline TFSI engine for the smaller A1. 

When I went to Germany for a media drive of the MK VI Golf in 2009, VW brought out one of its prototype Twin-Drive units and I had a chance to drive it. I published my report on that for GreenFuelsForecast.com. In my short drive of the car it worked well with relatively seamless mode transitions.  

As a longtime fan of the Wankel, I'm sorry to see it de-emphasized for this project. I still think it could make a great range extender and look forward to seeing further efforts with it. 

Worse still, third parties that were not directly involved in infringement cases were not legally allowed to challenge the validity of a patent. That has now changed and Google, Stack Exchange and the USPTO have teamed up to provide a platform for collaborative discussion and prior art submission to challenge patents. Let's hope that those with the necessary knowledge get involved and start bringing down some of these patents. 

If enough bad patents can get invalidated before they come to litigation, perhaps it will reduce the incentive for filing them in the first place. 

Today's technology and means of distribution turns that on its head, because the scarcity imposed by the physical publishing platform has been supplanted by nearly free platforms that are accessible to all. That means that anyone with an opinion, knowledgable or otherwise can put it out there. 

The old-fashioned writers and frankly even a lot of bloggers just arrange and regurgitate the "facts" as they hear them. The most valuable journalists today spend as much or more time reading what others write and then provide analysis and context that helps their readers to understand what it all means. They also call BS when it's required.

That's what I've always tried to provide in my own writing. I'm not always correct and I admit it when I mess up but at least to try to provide some insight. 

Also a big thumbs up for changing the format of these daily "ten best" lists to a single page instead of the old click-through to artificially elevate the page count configuration. Hopefully other sites will start following +Nick Denton's lead on this.