A faster-moving Q

Singapore

COD sounds like something that afflicts someone who suffers from both anal retentiveness and dyslexia. But in the world of Audi, it stands for "Cylinder On Demand", a feature only the saddest engine geek, such as your typical motoring writer, would find fascinating.

You'll find COD in the Q2 1.4 TFSI, a new version of the baby crossover that Audi first brought to Singapore in January last year. It's a system that shuts down half the engine under certain conditions in order to save fuel. How much fuel? "Several tenths of a litre per 100km," according to Audi. Someone call Al Gore and tell him global warming has been licked.

The improvement is so miniscule that you must be wondering why they bothered at all. It's because car companies such as Audi are staffed by obsessive engineers who simply can't help the…