The latest rendition of Audi’s top end luxury sedan, the A8, was unveiled yesterday at the temporarily erected Audi Pavilion in the design district of Miami. A classy debut for a stunning auto, no question, but the devil is certainly in the details. What sets this latest exclusive offering apart from its predecessor and its competition?

Since we are a green performance site, i’ll jump straight to the facts and figures: Audi is claiming an estimated 15% increase in fuel efficiency over the previous generation A8 and a sprint from 0 to 62 mph in 5.7 seconds. This would mean average combined fuel consumption rate of just under 21 mpg and a sprint to 60 that is a slight improvement over the previous gen A8. The figures are impressive, especially considering that the drive train in the new car is almost identical to that of the old one, the curb weight remains unchanged, and the overall dimensions of the car are larger. It is pretty clear that Audi’s push towards incorporating aluminum space frame technology into their automobiles is paying dividends with each successive redesign.

Audi remained tight lipped about any alternate fuel variants of the latest A8, choosing to focus on the performance and luxury offered by the flagship V8 model instead. They did say that such models would be announced closer to the car’s release to dealers later next year. My bet is that we will see an engine very similar to the diesel that the company is using in the much heavier current generation Q7 TDI SUV introduced to the A8 range in 2011.

I guess time will tell.

Image courtesy of Autoblog.