Audi’s Robotic Car Looks Hot In Old-School Livery

The autonomous Audi TTS that will try to climb Pikes Peak without a driver is packed with leading-edge tech, but Audi went old-school with livery that pays homage to its glory days in rallying.

Audi pulled the wraps off the latest iteration of the robotic car we took a ride in a few months ago, and the livery looks great. The stripes recall those of cars like the awesome Sport Quattro S1 Pikes Peak and Quattro Rallye A2, though the overall look is cleaner.

“We were very much inspired by the Pikes Peak race cars,” Raul Cenan, lead designer on the project, says. “But there was very different technology used in those cars overall. So we decided to go with more modern elements that were heritage-inspired.”

Audi and the guys at the Stanford University Dynamic Design Lab and Volkswagen’s Electronics Research Lab in Palo Alto are constantly tweaking and tuning the 2010 TTS ahead of its ascent up Pikes Peak in September. Pikes Peak is one hell of a place to test an autonomous car — the course is among the most harrowing in motorsports, a flat-out sprint through 156 turns on a 12.4-mile climb to the clouds.

The best drivers attack the route at speeds of up to 130 mph. Chris Gerdes, head of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford, assured us the TTS will be pushed to its limits.

Elton John Audi A1 Sold For 522,000 USD

Do you remember the cute and pink Audi A1 designed by Damien Hirst from a few days back. It was sold at Sir Elton John's auction at the Tie & Tiara Ball last night for 350,000 GBP, or 425,000 EUR, or 522,000 USD. That's more than half a million dollars! The money brought by the auctioned Audi A1 will go to Sir Elton John's AIDS Foundation (EJAF).

Last night's fundraiser featured almost 700 VIP guests from around the world who wished to help the research against AIDS. This foundation, which was established back in 1993, manages over £14 million in programmes across 15 countries. Apart from the research mentioned earlier, the foundation also helps with the medication, nutrition, education, shelter and support for millions of people around the globe.

The new generation Audi TT to debut in 2014

Audi has great plans for its future and they have declared these for public consumption and appreciation. For a beginning they plan to usher in the new RS3. To be launched at a major auto show, the new RS3 would be using the same engine as the TT-RS, which is a 2.5 liter engine that has direct fuel injection system producing 340 bhp and 330 lb-ft torque. Limited number of this car would be made available.

In 2011 at the Frankfurt Motor show they would be unveiling a car which would be the successor to the current A3. It is being built on a complete new chassis which is the same one being used for the seventh generation Volkswagen Golf. Audi also has plans slated for launch of a compact sports car named R4 as also variants of the A1 and wishes to revive the A2 project which is a completely electric model. The R4 on the other hand would be a hybrid version with a rotary engine installed at the base unit. There is also the emission free version of the R8 sports car that would be launched in late 2012.

Audi R4 in the pipeline for 2013 production?

R4 that’s scheduled to be out on the market in 2013.

What’s more, the rumored R4 is also looking to be based on what is now one of Audi’s most talked about concept cars in recent years, the E-Tron concept that we all laid our eyes on at the Detroit Auto Show earlier this year.

As far as what tech specs will come with the car, it’s expected to weigh in at nothing more than 2,500 pounds and will have either a 1.4-liter TSI engine that produces 180 horsepower or an engine similar to the ones being used in the Audi TT, that is, a 2.0-liter TDI inline-four that produces 170 horsepower. No word yet on how much the R4 is going to command in the market, but the rumor is that it will be slotted just below the TT with it’s price tag of $27,000.

Audi A1 1.6 TDI

Arriving nearly 10 years after BMW launched the first generation MINI, the A1 gives Audi a new contender in the premium-badged small car category, going up against Citroen’s DS3 and Alfa Romeo’s MiTo, too.

With some 18,000 models expected to be sold every year, Audi is pulling out all the stops. There’s a wide range of turbocharged engines, a long list of options for personalisation and a focus on quality unseen in the class before. The icing on the cake is a price range that starts from £13,140.

So, what’s the A1 like to drive, and is it good enough to knock the MINI off the top spot? Well, the A1 is brimming with showroom appeal. Its chunky shape is attractive, classy and every inch the small Audi, with its bold front end, coupé-style sloping tailgate and optional contrasting roof rails.

Whether you go for SE, Sport or S line trim, you’ll get alloy wheels, stop-start, air-con and a six-speaker CD stereo with iPod connectivity – so there’s no lack of equipment, either. Of the three trims, S line (which we’ve driven here) is the most visually aggressive, with 17-inch alloys and a sharp bodykit.

But next year the A1 will be available with a £1,950 Competition Line pack, which adds even racier looks and stickers to make the car resemble the firm’s classic Quattro rally car.

Inside, the cabin offers quality none of its rivals can match. The dash is covered in a neat soft-touch moulding, all the switches feel slick, and the latest pop-up MMI cabin control system from the flagship A8 is available, too.

As with the exterior, there’s scope for personalisation, with contrasting trim inserts and a range of packs that include kit such as 3D sat-nav, Bluetooth and a 20GB music hard drive.

2011 Audi A1 First Drive

Audi, go ahead and take our cherished ex-child pageant heartbreaker Justin Timberlake to do your celebrity lifestyle pre-launch marketing for your new big-volume car. Quote to us your estimated U.S. fuel mileage numbers in the damned press materials. Invite a few American hacks in to drive the wee one in Berlin. But Valhalla forbid that you should ever deign to export the 2011 Audi A1 for sale in North America.

Through the tree-thick former East Germany over many curve-starved roads, we have just driven around the impeccably put-together 2011 Audi A1. Based on the same chassis underpinning the maybe-for-North-America Volkswagen Polo — 2009 European Car of the Year and 2010 World Car of the Year — the new baby Audi (model "AU210") could hardly be anything but good driving material. We played hard with the current top-trim version, the 1.4 TFSI with its 121-horsepower turbocharged direct-injected 1.4-liter inline-4; it's like driving a nicely warmed-over A3, only smaller and tighter.

The U.S. and Canada do not get the Audi A1. The Germans always tantalizingly qualify this status with "not currently," but it would take a lot to convince Audi North America that it needs to bring over an Audi that's this small and doesn't currently offer all-wheel drive. What a bloody shame, too. The 2011 Audi A1 will definitely have both BMW and Mercedes moving forward the plans for their respective compacts; if the other two don't come out with something comparable soon, they're idiots. (And no, the Mini doesn't count as BMW's premium compact.)

Big Things Come in...
Positioning of the 2011 Audi A1 is pretty clear after a first drive. One intention is to compress several big-car touches from the Audi A8 into a compact layout. One echo of this design impulse is the latest LED headlight design for which Audi has become recognized and which the other Germans are now copying — and which we're also sort of getting tired of already. There's also the new hexagonal single-frame grille first used on the latest A8.

Inside, the touch surfaces are distinctly premium in heft and all the switchgear and stalk design is dedicated for the A1 (part of the sleeker new look we'll see on all Audis from here on). In the center stack area, the latest scaled-down version of the optional MMI onboard functionality is a direct carryover from the new design launched with the A8. Instead of cramming the MMI screen into the center dash as on all sub-A8 Audis, now the 6.5-inch screen pops up from the front shelf, thus separating functions and adding lots of clarity to the layout. The entire area around the driver cockpit now just looks better for it, too.

Audi Q7 Prototype with 62 Speakers: Wave Field Synthesis

If you've ever thought that 5.1 surround in a car was overkill, prepare to be blown away.

(Credit: Audi)

Audi, an automaker best know for its image of "understated luxury," is busy creating one of the most over-the-top OEM car audio systems that we've ever seen. The Audi Sound Concept takes an Audi Q7 SUV and crams 62 speakers into the cabin. Nope, that's not a typo: sixty-two!

The system consists of five tweeters spread between the dashboard and the rear seating area, a woofer in each of the four doors, a single subwoofer out back, and a whopping 52 midrange speakers wrapping the perimeter of the cabin and enveloping the passengers in 360 degrees of sound. You're definitely not going to want to crank this rig up to 11.

Each door of the Audi Sound Concept is home to about a half-dozen speakers.

(Credit: Audi)

The dashboard, rear hatch, and each of the roof pillars are home to still dozens more speakers.

(Credit: Audi)

However, there's more to this setup than pure volume. The true reason Audi is going to all of this trouble is a technology called Wave Field Synthesis. In a nutshell, this technology uses an obscene number of speakers to create a virtual soundstage that the listener inhabits. The advantage is that localization is reduced and audio takes on more 3D characteristics than a simple five-channel surround-sound system can offer. Virtual audio sources can move around the listener, above and below, or appear to be coming from outside of the vehicle. And unlike traditional audio arrays, the audio staging isn't dependent upon the listeners' positions. Sound is perceived from the same virtual location by every listener within the ring of sound.

However, don't expect to run down to your Audi dealer next month and pick up a Q7 with the Ludicrous Speaker Package; in its current testing configuration the amount of amplification needed to run the rig doesn't leave much, if any, space for hauling groceries. If the technology in the Audi Sound Concept ever sees the light of day, it won't be anytime soon. We're hoping to see more of this sort of technology when the 2010 car show season winds back up later this year.

Audi's fourth-generation A8

Audi's fourth-generation A8 may well have been the last new Audi that is substantially bigger than the model it replaces. Sources in Ingolstadt suggest the next-gen Q7, due 2013, will be a smaller, less aggressively styled SUV.


While Mercedes plans to extend the wheelbase of the next GL to make even more room for a full-size third row of seats, Audi is toying with the idea to offer two distinctly different Q7 body styles: an XXL seven-seater for China, the Middle East, and North America and a relatively compact five-seater for Europe and the rest of the world. But as Q7 sales have dropped sharply in the course of 2009, Audi is carefully weighing the options.