How Audi is Making Its SUVs Into Smart City Vehicles
Audi is using digital tech to make you luckier at timing traffic lights during your commute.
Your Audi is getting much smarter
Audi has always prided itself on technological innovation and streamlined effectiveness. The German automaker has never shied away from progress. In a word of surging digitization, Audi has realized that it can solve some life's biggest driving frustrations by leveraging technology.
Outsmarting traffic with an e-tron
Focus in on the bridge in this image and you’ll notice a blue Audi e-tron powering across it. This image is a snapshot of Audi’s real-world testing as it attempts to perfect a Smart City system. The goal is to make driving an Audi as effortless as possible in a congested city traffic network. By anticipating congestion, the Smart City network effect will lessen your traffic burden. But how does it work?
Stop less - waste less time
Imagine if you could glide through a city perfectly sequencing a series of green traffic lights. What might be considered a pure instance of luck, is, in fact, an exact science. Audi is using traffic recognition technology and a networked traffic light grid to control rolling momentum. By reducing speeds at critical moments, Audi’s Smart City system can anticipate green traffic signals and ensure a commute without having to stop for long periods of time.
The nerve-center to making you Audi glide through a city center
Public infrastructure is a crucial element of the Audi Smart City project. Traffic lights react to vehicle volume and closing speeds. Some of the cities participating with Audi in this new tech project have allowed certain intersections to be networked. That means Audi can use intense calculations, in the two minutes before its experimental e-tron got to the traffic lights. That time and distance allow enough margin to reduce vehicle speed and perfectly time opportunity to happen upon a green light.
It can theoretically save you a lot of fuel
How good is the system? Although the e-tron runs on electricity, so the only gain is convenience, Audi says that avoiding red traffic lights does make a very big difference with any gasoline engine. All Audi A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, Q3, Q7, Q8, and e-tron models produced since mid-July 2019 include Audi Traffic Light Information technology. This certainly enables the brand to integrate its vehicles with cities to adopt a network shared with Smart City infrastructure. And how much gas will you save if that happens? Audi estimates a 15% reduction with inner-city fuel consumption.
Audi keeps you moving - when the roads get too narrow
Beyond highly intuitive traffic light technology, Audi is offering its owners smarter inner-city mobility options. There are places your car simply cannot access inside a varied city center. For that eventuality, Audi is prototyping an experimental e-scooter that folds-up very tidily but has an impressive range of 12.5-miles. However, this is for scenarios where walking is a bit too arduous or your normal vehicle simply isn't able to maneuver the route.
Helping you go green - literally
And this is what Audi’s Smart City traffic light information technology looks like from behind the wheel. An elegant digital icon with speed recommendation, as you near a set of traffic signals. It has been programmed to prompt you with speed reduction information as you get closer than 800 feet from a set of lights.
For help with your do-it-yourself maintenance or repair project, please visit our how-to section in the forum.