Audi reveals new A8 in Barcelona

When Audi launched its striking ‘prologue’ concept in 2014, it promised the sleek show car’s crisp new design language would be introduced on its next A8 limousine.

Well, the new A8 is here and that outstanding prologue design isn’t. Instead, it looks more like a facelift than the all-new, prologue-inspired flagship limousine Audi’s supporters hoped would lead the troubled German premium brand out of its design doldrums.

Audi promises its fourth-generation limo will deliver a bunch of new technology, including an interior claimed to introduce a new level of charisma and ground-breaking Level 3 autonomous driving.

But whatever happens inside the new A8, perceptions of it will be defined by its exterior design, which looks at best moderately evolutionary rather than the step-change revolution promised by design boss Marc Lichte in Los Angeles two and a half years ago.

The glasshouse and the roofline look suspiciously like they did on the third-generation A8, while the proportions are typically Audi, with a slightly long front overhang.

The biggest upgrade is probably the enlarged single-frame grille, which now stretches across almost the entire front-end of the big limousine, flanked by Matrix LED headlights with long-range laser lights, plus two OLED tail-lights (each with four OLED panels) joined together by an LED strip across the bootlid.

And it is a big limousine, sitting 5.17 metres long in the stock version, or 5.3 metres long in the A8 L, which has had a 13cm segment added between the front and rear axles primarily to extend the rear legroom.

“I have to say that to design my first Audi from a clean sheet of paper is an emotional moment and we are really proud of this car, said Lichte at the world debut in Barcelona overnight.

“We moved the shoulder line down from above the wheels to down between the wheels, because it pulls the whole look down and that gives us space to give it muscle above the rear wheels and the front wheels.

“It delivers on the promise made by the prologue in Los Angeles. It brings all of this together in one luxury coupe car.”

Audi and Mercedes-Benz are racing to get their Level 3 self-driving systems on to the road, even if the full functionality isn’t yet comprehensively covered by legislation. Audi has nudged ahead with 41 driver-assistance systems on the A8.

Audi’s system, activated by an AI button on the centre console, will take care of all driving demands at up to 60km/h, but only on freeways and highways with a dividing barrier. It takes care of starting, stopping, accelerating and steering and makes Audi the first to bring a laser scanner into production.

Audi insists it has achieved the Level 3 goal first, even if the upgraded Mercedes-Benz S-Class, launched this week in Zurich, is capable of running hands-free at up to 180km/h and on smaller roads, with oncoming traffic.

On the plus side for Audi (depending on the national laws), its drivers can take its hands off the wheel permanently, while the Benz system demands frequent wheel grabbing, regardless of traffic heaviness.

Audi’s goal has been to deliver a 10-second window for drivers to re-take control of the car in situations that outstrip the autonomous capability, or when a decision needs to be made that is outside its pre-programed parameters.

This needs a fleet of sensors, including radar, camera, ultrasonic and laser scanners and then merges all the data together to create an image it can use to drive the car.

It will add on an AI remote parking pilot, as first introduced by BMW’s current 7 Series, which can be operated by a smartphone from outside the car in the new myAudi app.

Owners can even show off their car’s parking prowess by watching the whole process on a phone or tablet with a live feed from the car’s 360-degree camera system.

There is a plug-in hybrid version, dubbed the A8 L e-tron quattro, with a combined 330kW of power and 700Nm of torque. The hybrid combines a 3.0-litre TFSI engine and an electric motor, with the lithium-ion battery storing enough for 50km of zero-emission driving under NEDC conditions.

Critically, it can also be charged with no cables, with Audi Wireless Charging working from a pad fixed to a garage floor, sending power to a 3.6kW receiving coil in the car. The pad raises slightly to close the distance to the car’s charging coil, and Audi claims it has 90 percent efficiency in charging off the domestic mains power supply.

The car’s powertrain is underpinned by a move to 48-volt technology that Audi debuted in the SQ7 in 2015, giving even the entry-level versions a mild-hybrid capability, with the starter motor replaced by what Audi calls a Belt Alternator Starter that can add to the car’s performance at low engine speeds.

This both reduces fuel consumption by a claimed 0.7L/100km and raises performance for the same size of engine, and is predicted to render the brand’s troubled diesel powertrains redundant.

The entry models will be powered by a 3.0-litre V6 TDI with 210kW of power and a similarly sized TFSI petrol engine with 250kW, both of which are connected to eight-speed automatic transmissions and drive through the front wheels.

There will be two V8s: a 4.0-litre 320kW TDI and a 338kW version of Audi’s 4.0-litre petrol TFSI V8 that will arrive on sale months after the entry-level models, while a 6.0-litre W12 will arrive some time later.

Expect first examples of the new A8 to arrive Down Under next year.

The 48-volt system allows all the A8 variants to sail, with the engine switched off, on descents or long periods of coasting, and it’s capable of recovering up to 12kW of energy under braking.

Built around an all-new aluminium architecture, it delivers all-wheel steering, speed-dependent power steering ratios, an optional sport differential and all-wheel drive.

Taking lessons from the R8 sports car, the spaceframe aluminium chassis adds a stiffening panel of carbon-fibre in the rear, plus hot-stamped steel for the cabin and ultra light-weight magnesium for the strut tower bar.

It has an optional AI active suspension, which is effectively fully active, capable of raising or lowering each wheel independently, depending on the road conditions or the driver’s preferences.

Working with the 48-volt electrical system, it even raises the suspension higher if it senses an unavoidable collision, to minimise the chances and severity of injury.

Its interior is dominated by a full-width black panel, which houses the touch-screens, which are almost invisible when the car is switched off. It retains the digital virtual cockpit as its instrument cluster, while a full-width air vent sits atop a 10.1-inch touch MMI screen, with the 8.6-inch air-conditioning touch-screen sitting beneath it.

It adds a swathe of new applications for the myAudi digital platform, while it also delivers a new Matrix LED reading light, with seven LEDs each, for the rear seats on the A8 L, letting passengers adjust every part of the light pattern.

Its navigation system uses swarm intelligence from the entire fleet of Audi vehicles, all of which are equipped with SIM cards in Europe to enable the system.

It’s a bigger car than its predecessor, adding 37mm to the length of the third-generation A8 and the same to the long-wheelbase version. Both the standard 2998mm and 3128mm A8 L wheelbases are 6mm longer than before.

At 1945mm, it’s actually 4mm narrower than its predecessor, while its 1473mm height is 13mm taller (though the 1488mm A8 L is 17mm taller).

The headlights only activate their long-range laser spot above 70km/h, while there are 138 LEDs in each Matrix headlight, while there are 135 light-emitting diodes in each tail light.

The base diesel engine’s torque peaks at 600Nm from just 1250rpm and hangs on to it until 3250rpm, while the 3.0-litre TFSI brings 500Nm to the party from 1370 to 4500rpm. The TFSI uses a hot vee, with its twin-scroll turbocharger sitting in the 90-degree vee between the two banks of cylinders.

The TFSI petrol V8 uses two turbochargers, both sitting inside the 90-degree hot vee, and it also deactivates cylinders two, three, five and eight when the torque demands is low to lower fuel consumption. Where the petrol engine’s two turbochargers activate simultaneously, the V8 diesel’s two turbos come on in sequence.

The flagship engine, in the 2018 A8 L W12, will displace 5950cc and produce 430kW and 800Nm. Using two twin-scroll turbochargers, it hits its torque peak at just 1300rpm and holds it until 5000rpm. To save fuel, it also shuts down the entire left bank of cylinders under light loads.