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TriplePundit recently had an opportunity to speak to the director of sustainability and government affairs at Audi of America. What particularly piqued our interest in speaking with him is, not only is it atypical to combine sustainability and government affairs into one role at a car company, but in this case, the role is occupied by a person who is also a climate scientist. We were interested to understand how placing a climate scientist in this role helps Audi navigate and perhaps drive an auto industry increasingly committed to electrification, and to learn what lies ahead for the company and for an industry in flux. Spencer Reeder, who started out as a chemical and materials scientist, is the person driving these efforts at Audi of America. Having previously worked for Boeing on environmental programs, and in particular, researching ways to reduce the toxicity of products used in the aerospace industry, Reeder later went back to graduate school to study earth sciences. This led him to focus on geophysics and climate science, and later to developing the environmental portfolio for Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen’s philanthropic organization. Four years into his current role at Audi, we asked Reeder to talk a bit about Audi placing sustainability and government affairs in one role, and his approach to the job. “It’s only when you align government policy advocacy work with sustainability goals, that you truly mean what you say” he explains, adding that when he came on board he was “going to be a loud voice for this” both in terms of his engagement with the industry but importantly, internally within Audi. By this he meant, he saw his role as one which needed to inspire the organization to see sustainability as something that would become part of its DNA. This was particularly important because around that time, Audi’s parent company, Volkswagen, was recently emerging from its “dieselgate” scandal. Though Reeder recognizes he is just one voice in a large organization, aligning sustainability with government affairs manifests in things like opposing the previous administrations’ efforts to roll back national fuel economy standards. Audi, as part of VW, was one of only four car companies which joined with California to maintain more stringent mileage standards, for example. Audi also aggressively prices carbon emissions within its own organization. Setting a price of $200 per ton — a level higher than industry standard, by an order of magnitude — Reeder says, rather than operating this as “shadow pricing,” the company actually makes a transfer of funds which is then used to undertake further CO2 mitigation activities internally. “The only way to effect long term change is through pricing carbon into your business systemically,” Reeder asserts. Reeder was also a voice internally advocating for the company to lean-in to battery electric vehicle (BEV) technology for the future, even over competing technologies such as fuel cells. With that in mind, we asked him what he thinks the opportunities and impediments are for electric vehicles (EVs) in the short term. First of all, he says customer demand is “very strong” though concedes it remains quite regionalized at the moment. Unlike California, many states have yet to make strong commitments to EVs, but Audi is not having any difficulty selling the ones it’s producing. Unfortunately, though, for the time being at least, costs are heading in an adverse direction. “Things are going to get more expensive before they get cheaper,” Reeder says. This is a result of higher commodity prices, and supply chain shortages in general — the latter, or course, impacting many industries in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another important challenge Reeder identifies is the need for better charging infrastructure. Federal funding, he says, is “completely insufficient,” especially at this moment when he believes EVs have passed the point of the early adopter phase and are quickly moving into the initial stages of the mass market. He warns, “the mass market won’t tolerate inconvenience.” As such, he says, broadly distributed fast charging infrastructure will be necessary to sustain the mass market, equipped with 150 kW fast chargers at a minimum. Given Reeder’s chemical and materials science background, we were keen to ask him about end-of-life battery considerations, since this is often cited by EV detractors as an environmental concern associated with the push towards electric vehicles. As well as identifying energy storage as an important second-life use for vehicle batteries, he is quite bullish on the opportunities for battery recycling, even to the point that recycling valuable battery components may even help wind down raw materials extraction at some point in the future. Indeed, Reeder says, most vehicle batteries probably won’t be repurposed for energy storage, so it is “critical for Audi to have a closed-loop life cycle for batteries.” The automaker's goals are to have reduced its carbon footprint by 30 percent by 2025 compared with 2019 levels and for 30 percent of its vehicle portfolio to be fully BEV or plug-in hybrid by 2025. Image credit: Audi media relations https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2022/climate-scientist-sustainability-audi/744361

Hello Dan, Thanks for being g in touch with the forum. Genuine wheels are aimed such that their load bearing is through the centre of the hub bearing. Displacing that loading by using spacers can be bad news for bearings. Kind regards, Gareth.

You're welcome 🙂 also take a look.at YouTube for some buyers guides 👍

When looking at one with a CVT, see if the car has a towbar. The CVT doesn't take too kindly for a lot of towing.

Hi being as D5S 25w are fitted to most of the new vehicles that are not LED spec the D1S D2S D3S are becoming redundant stock so best they get rid quick, the other thing is D5S bulbs have the ballast built into the bulb, cheaper to produce. Steve.

I hadn't realised the bulbs have come down in price.

Hi Cambelt is a must, the HID bulbs and ballasts are no major money as the bulbs are D3S which are old hat and you can get a pair of Lumex upgrades for about £70 and the ballasts for about £30 each as they are the same ones used in Skoda,VW, and some Fords, if you buy one make sure its manual as they are bullet proof as long as the gear oil is changed, brakes are relatively cheap as they used the same brake/disc combo on most other models its called globalisation but depending what model you have the price according to the dealer will go up so buy O.E. spec, Febi,Borg Warner, Bosch, Blueprint. Steve.

Well Steve, your mention of decency to respond, sums it up in a couple of words. It doesn’t add any on-cost to the already free! - and welcoming- service, yet some must think that attribute is an unnecessary skill to acquire these days. I find myself thinking ‘nice car, pity you didn’t order it with the optional manners pack!’ , but there again, I’m old fashioned - well old anyway! It’s interesting to hear that you too get a well deserved satisfaction from helping others, and that Steve Q does as well. That’s great, now we have at least three guaranteed, and I sure a few others too. Keep enjoying that Steve. There must be very few forums which can benefit from such experience gained from almost galaxial mileage usage, and the necessary problem solving which goes with it - and all to try to earn a living. Many thanks again and kind regards, Gareth.

Hi Mike don't take any of this personally, its not aimed at people like yourself who have observed the proprieties and answered and said thank you, I can see what Gareth is driving at along with the others that try to answer a problem, 90% of the information that is given is at best thin and devoid of any real substance, the information you have given is good and you even reply to the requests for further information, Gareth and co are trying to get around the one post wonders who can't be bothered to reply TO ANY SUGGESTIONS OR REQUESTS, they have no preconceptions of what the ideal member is and I think the previous posts just reflect what has changed in the world and not singling out anyone in particular who is already a proactive member, the bottom line is if you attract answers for your problem at least have the decency to reply, otherwise it becomes an exercise in futility and I can honestly see why a lot of first time problem posts remain unanswered, more often than not we are on a hiding to nothing, I personally get a great deal of satisfaction from trying to help solve problems and especially when it all goes the posters way, it has nothing to do with personalities its just plain old helping each other. Steve.