Driven Round The Bend



The new Audi A4/5/6/8...



Just a quick one this, regarding something that crossed my mind while reading about the features on the newly released Audi A6. Ignoring the déjá vu styling that renders the A6 almost indistinguishable from its A4 and A8 brethrin, one aspect which caught my eye was the availability of options that can control the A6 independently, allowing the car to steer, brake, and park itself. For over a decade now this technology has been filtering down the automotive car pecking order. Radar-guided cruise control first debuted on the previous gen Mercedes S-Class, and is now available on most large saloons. Volvo has been beavering away with systems which automatically brake your vehicle for you should a pedestrian stumble into the road ahead before you can react. (Though as seen in the test video below, it may need tinkering with.) Lexus and Volkswagen both produce cars which are capable of parking themselves with no input from the driver whatsoever, and even more mainstream manufacters have been pioneering, as with Citroen's lane departure warning system, which vibrates the driver's seat should the car wander across dual-carriageway lanes without correction, in case the driver has fallen asleep at the wheel.

Now it's long been a fantasy of the future that we will all one day be chauffered around in totally automatic cars, just like scientists of the past predicted Moon colonies and entirely pill-based nutrition. But autopilot cars may actually be on the way, above and ahead of all the other pie in the sky fantasy. Not only have we got all the aforementioned mainstream tech, but Audi (again) have recently pushed the boundaries, with some help from students at Stanford Univeristy, USA. Their autonomous car project, based on the current TTS model, has gained steady progress over the last couple of years, culminating last month in the car, known as 'Shelley', completing a pilotless run of the infamous 12 and a half mile Pikes Peak rally course in Colorado. Using its array of cameras, sensors, and high speed memory-acutuated on board command centre, the TTS completed the hillclimb in 27 minutes without incident.

A professional rally driver in a purpose built car would hope to achieve a time of around 17 minutes. We may well ignore with good reason the aspirations of flying cars, or miracle-powered concepts, but in a few years with consistent investment, the idea of a 'driver's car' may well begin to disappear altogether. And it'll probably be Audi at the head of the wave. Remember that scene in 'iRobot' when Will Smith's character provokes horror from his female passenger, by engaging manual override of his Audi RSQ and driving it himself? Maybe Hollywood was onto something for once.