CES ASIA: Audi commits to car as digital mobile device

Audi AG Chairman Rupert Stadler has confirmed Audi's intention to provide a premium vehicle platform as a digital mobile device.

Wheeling out the new Q7 e-tron onto stage at the packed DaGuan Theatre in Pudong, Shanghai, Stadler touched on the strides Audi has made in recent years to merge the digitisation of the interface between driver and their digital devices, between the car and the driving environment and even at the factory level as Audi begins 3D printing of selected parts and the virtual showroom opened in 2013 allowing customers to design their new Audi via gesture control.

Being staged in China brings some unique challenges for Audi that may not immediately be at the forefront of our thinking in Oz. Stadtler was keen to emphasise how the new e-tron (and h-tron) models in the Audi range will provide a sustainable future of our mega-cities, drastically reducing emissions.

We are passing through the Digital Revolution much faster, and with greater effect, than the Industrial Revolution of a century and a half gone. Big Data concepts, the Internet of Things, the design of our future mega-cities – such as Shanghai – and the very Germanic word efficiency are all at the core of Audi's vision.

Dr Ulrich Hackenberg, Board Member – Technical Development at Audi drove onto the stage in the Audi RSQ (from the movie i-Robot) and spoke of the merging of science fiction with the technology of today.

For those of us in the West, this means Audi working on the partnerships they have created with the Automotive Alliance group, including Google and Apple, working to incorporate technologies such as Android Auto and Apple Car Play.

However, here we are in Shanghai, behind the Great Firewall of China, where all things Google, including YouTube, Gmail and the ubiquitous search engine itself, along with Twitter and Facebook, are not accessible.

These are things that in Australia and most other parts of the world Audi are striving to integrate along with the Virtual Cockpit and dockable Audi Tablet (powered by Google's Android and proprietary Audi MMI Application Programming Interface).

In China, one of Audi's major markets, they need new partners to provide similar services. Hackenberg announced Audi will team up with electronic communications corporation Huawei and joining forces with internet app developer Baidu in order to produce in-car applications that the West will see from more familiar companies.

Audi is also investing heavily (24 billion euros in fact) on R&D innovation, including – to the delight of the assembled crowd – local Chinese universities and an Audi-branded innovation centre in Beijing.

Chief among the manufacturer's innovation programme is autonomous driving to reduce the global road toll. 1.2 million people per year are involved in motoring accidents, 90 per cent of these are attributed to human error.

Using that fabulous 'E' word again, Audi believes the efficiency and reliability of "piloted" solutions will help reduce this number.

Here at CES Asia we will have a chance to experience the piloted driving ability of the new A7, fitted out with sensors and connected systems that are currently at the forefront of what is legal for autonomous driving. Testing it out on the busy Shanghai streets will certainly raise things a notch from CES 2014, where Audi showed off driverless vehicles running along the straight and comparably safer roads of the Nevada desert.

When the 2017 A8 hits the roads, it will almost be self-aware, sporting everything Audi has to offer in piloted driving. The A8 e-tron was the last vehicle to hit the stage during the keynote speech.

With a top speed of 250 kph driven by two 170kW electro engines, combining for 340kW or power delivering 920Nm of torque instantly pushing the R8 e-tron from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.9 seconds, it would be hard to understand exactly why one would leave the driving to the computer.  But in 2017, it will be an option.

This keynote did not draw the curtain open on any new announcements. It instead concreted a great deal of the vision Audi has laid out at previous US based Consumer Electronic Shows.