What's the news?
Audi is one of the major players in the in-car technology game and we've been invited to see some of the company's latest gadgets - due to hit showroom models any day soon - as well as get a look at Virtual Dashboard.
If you're thinking Ingolstadt has done this technology already, you're thinking of Virtual Cockpit, the 12.3-inch configurable TFT screen that replaces the conventional analogue speedo and rev counter dials with a glorious display that takes up the entire binnacle. It's a feature we love and the only problem is that, apart from on the TT and a select few other pricey models, it's an option rather than standard fit. One day soon, though...
Anyway, Virtual Dashboard is the next step on from Virtual Cockpit and it does away with Audi's excellent MMI rotary controller on the transmission tunnel, instead utilising two touchscreens in the dashboard. The lower one is your primary interface, where the smartphone, media, climate and nav functions are all stored. Select them on this screen and the relevant details are displayed in a larger format on the higher centre console screen. You can then even 'swipe' whatever's on that higher screen to the left onto your Virtual Cockpit instrument cluster, so that they information you desire is directly in your field of vision.
Of course, getting rid of physical buttons for touchscreen-only controls is not that groundbreaking - PSA has done as much already in its Peugeot and Citroen models - but naturally, as this is Audi, there's a graphical slickness and an ergonomic rightness to everything that really makes this interface appealing. For instance, there's a strong level of haptic feedback on the digital buttons of the lower screen; you don't just light brush the display to get sub-menus to work, you need to give the screen a firm prod to activate functions - and the sensation is like you're pushing a real switch.
Virtual is a word you'll hear a lot in connection with Audi in the future, as the company is making good use of the virtual reality technology - it uses it for training dealers about Pre-Sense City safety technology (see Features), it's going to offer customers the chance to slip on a VR headset and 'look' at in great detail/get inside their specified Audi in the showroom, and Audi will also be putting Virtual Engineering Terminals into their dealerships.
At the moment, these cost €30,000 apiece, although the cost is expected to tumble. VET works by linking a 1.4-metre-square table to a 65-inch monitor. The table is a virtual interface, which - if tech-specific models of cars or buildings are placed on it - quickly renders such items in the digital world you can see on the screen. The Audi dealer can then interactively talk the customer through five technologies (Matrix LED high beam, LED Laser high beam, Traffic Jam Assist, Park Assist and predictive efficiency Assistant) using clear visual displays that show the technology working at its absolute best. Audi insists this is not supposed to replace a 'classic test drive' for a buyer, but it should inform them when they're making a purchase decision.
Elsewhere, Audi is continuing to make strides with its autonomous driving tech. Following on from its group purchase of Here mapping, along with BMW and Mercedes, Ingolstadt uses 1/8th-scale Q5s fitted with all the latest gizmos to show off robotised driving, 'swarm data' gathering and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications, all of which are crucial to the full-sized self-driving car hitting public roads in the near future.
Anything else?
So, that Virtual Dashboard - no confirmation but something very similar to it is likely to appear in the next-generation A8 flagship that's due out in 2017. Compared to the hit-and-miss gesture control in the BMW 7 Series, Audi's set-up could be the class-leading infotainment when it launches in a year's time. Helping it in that aim will be the fact that the A8 will have the absolute latest modular infotainment platform (MIB2+) that has five times the computing power of the system found in a car as recent as the 2012MY Audi A3. Impressive stuff.