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NEWS
Audi looks to the future
Prestige brand plans multi-faceted approach to engines, fuels and infrastructure for future mobilityAudi is taking a holistic approach to future mobility, analysing not only the role four-wheeled transport will play, but the motive power sources for its vehicles, and even the way in which a city’s transport needs will be met.
Speaking at the Audi Future Lab – a pre-Paris Motor Show conference aimed at sharing some of the company's forward-looking endeavours – the brand’s head of powertrain development, Johanne Gessler, said the brand is ultimately aiming for what it calls CO2 neutral mobility.
“By 2050 there will be over nine billion people on this planet, the bulk of which will be living in so-called mega-cities. Obviously such population growth will affect our lives, so we as a car manufacturer are asked to re-think mobility in totally new ways,” explained Mr Gessler.
“We still want to thrill and enthuse people for our cars, and [at the same time] break a path for CO2 neutral mobility. For Audi, this is [about] far more than just a battery driving along, it’s about the entire lifecycle of a car, and understanding the identity of our society, and what the role of the car has in all of this.”
Working with city planners and architects, Audi is seeking to understand its place in what it calls ‘mega-cities’, those with a population upwards of 10 million inhabitants, and believes versatility is the key. The four-ring brand said it believes its future customers will still want individual mobility, and a premium product, regardless of whether it has four wheels, two wheels or even one.
“To know what mobility [solutions] are required we must first grapple with the idea of what a city will look like. Infrastructure can also drive mobility,” explained Audi strategic corporate planning committee member, Dominik Stampf. “We need to understand how individual mobility can develop in these very densely populated areas and how small a premium product can get. In essence, how do we bring the Audi brand to other vehicle categories.”
The project looks at existing larger cities from across the globe to gain a better understanding of the roles played by public and private transport, and how the two intersect. The usage patterns of personal vehicles in particular, says Audi, helps planners to preempt not only the size of the vehicles we will be driving in the future, but how they will communicate with one another, and what energy sources will be used to power them.
“[Working with city planners] we interlink our ideas in such a way that we generate totally new concepts for the mobility of the future,” added Mr Gessler. “It is our aim to develop offerings, especially for mega-cities, that will also ensure individual mobility in the future. There will not be a one-size-fits-all answer.”
In the shorter term, Audi believes there is still scope for the internal combustion engine to improve, saying it wishes to better utilise existing technology, and further explore what it says is the “large, untapped potential to save fuel”.
The manufacturer says it must look at not only perfecting the internal combustion engine as we know it, but at developing a range of powerplants that will suit customers seeking alternatives to the car as we know it. A range of electric, hybrid, gas and liquid-powered engines are the key to the survival of individual mobility, Audi says.
“Our rightsizing strategy nicely balances out displacement and forced induction. Our diesel engines balance emotional appeal with lowest possible fuel consumption. And of course there’s electrification and hybrid. With these technologies we believe we will bring the fuel consumption and emissions of our engines by another 15 to 20 per cent over the next few years,” said Mr Gessler.
To power these engines, and further develop existing technology, Audi is working on synthetic diesel, synthetic ethanol, synthetic ‘natural’ gas production, and battery technology – aimed at increasing the range of electric vehicles to more than 200km – as well as improved internal combustion engines, hydrogen power and, of course, hybrid vehicles.
Maximising the resources at hand and bettering the technology available will extend the availability of individual mobility until such time as the next breakthrough is found. And with Audi enlisting new minds at every turn, through the company's interest in start-up technology companies and recruitment of university graduates we wouldn’t mind tipping that a breakthrough isn’t that far away.
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Written byMatt Brogan
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