navin in KC

I have been reading quite a bit about the Tesla Model S driving itself. It's autopilot is fairly limited, but I was curious what the current status is for getting an A8 to drive me to work while I work or read (The Tesla can't do this yet). Has Audi suggested how soon they will be able to offer this? The legal issues may be a larger obstacle than the technology at this point.

Jack88

Google is working on it, and might end up being the first. They're not far off, and I'd suspect it's a tech they would try to license out as opposed to building their own car.

MP4.2+6.0

Audi/Delphi already have the test Q5 running around in the wild around here by the not so secret development lab in SV. Search on it if you want more reports--including when it and the Googlemobile tried to mix it up. Only in SV--two autonomous test mobiles side by side a lane apart trying for the same lane opening. They said all went "as designed"; something tells me a few more sensors and a few thousand lines of what if code are getting written and/or reviewed again.

Chances Audi will license self driving from Google are about the same as...no one beyond the grade of Sergeant (Schultz) knowing anything about TDI problems and creative software development. Or, less tongue in cheek look at another pointer. The big German triumpherate just paid three billion for the Navteq and similar IP for mapping/autonomous rather than be beholden to anyone for a key element of autonomous or give away control of their own driver/user experience. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...-former-navteq Never mind that Nokia paid $8 billion for it previously; the key assets are probably maps way beyond what you think of for Nav--you need to know exactly where every curb and other tiny detail is at every location for things like turns and tons of other things. But then there is Tesla who apparently is essentially crowd sourcing it by basically keeping track of where its cars go and constructing presumably known traversable routes.

Going to be an interesting battle of industry titans, all of whom are used to "our way" and would rather die than give up control of the customer and the user experience. Don't be surprised if some end up being 8 tracks and Betamaxes on wheels; now to figure out which one. That is after the legal and ethical issues get sorted--like the unavoidable crash where you can write the code to swerve to try to avoid but then take out the kids the system calculated were a 60% (or fill in the number?) likelihood on the side of the road.