Hot Audis don't necessarily need AWD

Audi’s RS models may become available in rear-wheel drive configuration, according to a new report. Speaking with Auto Express at the Goodwood Festival of Speed,Audi Sport boss Stephan Winkelmann revealed that it has been looking at the future direction of Audi’s performance division.“When looking at the name, we decided Quattro could be misleading. Quattro is the four-wheel-drive system and is one of the things that made Audi great – but in our opinion was not the right name for the company,” Winkelmann told Auto Express. “I can imagine we can also have cars with rear-wheel drive or two-wheel drive in the future.”




The executive pointed out that he didn’t want the name of Audi’s performance division to appear misleading hence the name change from Quattro GmbH to Audi Sport. Winkelmann also added that he wanted Audi’s Quattro all-wheel drive system to be offered as an option on many of the German automaker’s models but remain standard on its most powerful offerings. He continued by stating that Audi will always offer sporty models that won’t sacrifice comfort.

For the near future, Winkelmann confirmed that two new Audi Sport models will debut at the 2017 Frankfurt auto show in September. He also revealed that electrification is in the cards for future RS-badged Audi vehicles.

An improvement over the old system?

Whenever a car company adopts a new naming scheme, there’s always a period of time when the public rejects the change, dismissing the new nomenclature as confusing or pointless. But eventually, we get used to it, just like we got used to calling every Infiniti a Q or QX and putting a different letter at the end of some Mercedes model names. But Audi’s new nomenclature, which replaces the current system based on engine displacement, may take some extra getting used to.

Because electric drivetrains are becoming more and more prevalent, Audi believes advertising engine displacement on the backs of its cars makes less sense. Thus, it has come up with a new standardized two-digit system that will be used on both conventional and electrified models.

Have you had your morning coffee yet? Because this will take some brain power to understand. Every Audi model from A1 to Q7 will get a two-digit number relaying power output in kilowatts. But the number won’t directly correspond to a car’s output. Instead, the number represents a range. For example, a “30” designation would be used on cars producing between 81 and 96 kW (110-131 hp), and a “45” would be used on cars that make between 169 and 185 kW (230-252 hp). The numbers increase in increments of five until you reach the very top of the hierarchy–the “70” badge, which can be found on vehicles that make 400 kW or more (544 hp and up). S, RS, and R8 models will be excluded from the new naming scheme, and will continue to just wear model badges.

The two-digit number will appear in front of a badge indicating the type of powertrain the vehicle uses, with familiar terms like TFSI (turbocharged direct-injected gasoline), TDI (turbodiesel), g-tron (natural gas and gasoline), and e-tron (hybrid or battery electric) returning. The upcoming 2019 Audi A8 will be the first to use the new nomenclature when it arrives in Germany this fall.




As alternative drive technologies become increasingly relevant, engine displacement as a performance attribute is becoming less important to our customers,” said Dr. Dietmar Voggenreiter, Audi board of management member for sales and marketing, in a release. “The clarity and logic of structuring the designations according to power output makes it possible to distinguish between the various performance levels.”

The number system is somewhat reminiscent of Tesla’s strategy, which uses battery size in kilowatt-hours to communicate a model’s place in the hierarchy. Tesla will not use that system for the Model 3, however–at least not when it comes to badging.

Is Audi’s new system easier to understand than the previous “2.0T” and “3.0T” badges, which didn’t always accurately advertise displacement or forced induction method? Will Audi buyers accept the new badges (or even notice)? Time will tell.

Source: Audi

After 10 years in development, the lights are being held up by bureaucracy.
Headlights typically serve one purpose -- helping drivers see the road. To illuminate the asphalt at night the lights traditionally had two settings. Low beams for driving around town and passing other vehicles or high beams for seeing more of the road and surrounding area. That's pretty much all we've had for decades. While cars in the United States still operate like this, in other parts of the world -- thanks to technology -- lights have evolved.

Currently, on your US-spec car there are the usual two high/low beam options coming out of two bulbs usually housed in the same element. There are better systems out there. For example, Audi's new HD Matrix LED with Audi Laser light.

Our headlights are pretty dumb. Sure, your car can automatically toggle the high beams on and off based on oncoming traffic, and some cars even offer the ability to turn the lights when you go around the corner. Meanwhile, Audi, Mercedes and other automakers have cars in Europe with ADB (adaptive driving beam) lighting, which reduces the glare for oncoming cars while giving drivers a brighter driving environment.

Audi's HD Matrix LED lights are pretty much what the name implies. They're throwing a brighter, cleaner light onto the road than traditional bulbs can. Instead of one (or two) light elements, each headlight is a matrix of 32 individually controlled LEDs. These tiny lights can be turned off independently of one another and support 64 stages of dimming.

By using a bunch of little lights, each headlight can adjust how much illumination is thrown and create segments within that projection where the light is dimmer or brighter. So if the windshield-mounted camera detects an oncoming car, the Audi can dim the light hitting that vehicle. The Audi can track that vehicle with the camera and adjust the lighting accordingly. It's basically creating a moving mask of lower intensity light onto the oncoming vehicle while the driver in the Audi still gets the benefit of bright LEDs everywhere else on the road.

It's an impressive system that took years to develop.

"We were discussing LED lights, and our competitors told me, 'Why are you dealing with LEDs? It's too expensive. It's too early. It'll take 10 years before you get it into production and it's cost-competitive.'" Stephan Berlitz, Audi's head of lighting development, said while we stood in Audi's light tunnel at its Ingolstadt, Germany, headquarters. He noted that it did indeed take 10 years for LEDs to make sense in cars. "But you couldn't get here if you didn't do anything the 10 years before."

Berlitz said the idea for headlights that can be dimmed and brightened in segments came out of its night-vision department. The project manager working on night vision for Audi asked Berlitz if they could create segments from LEDs for light and use the night-vision camera to detect oncoming cars. "It was a crazy idea," Berlitz said. It didn't help that suppliers told Berlitz that it wouldn't work and it was "against physics." "No, it's not against physics. It must work, and we found a solution," Berlitz said.

To find that solution the company even got funding from the German government to make these individually addressable LEDs possible.

Building a lighting system that works and is cost-competitive is a long, tough road. Even tougher is dealing with regulatory bodies. In the United States, that's NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), and it's this government body that's been slow to give automakers like Audi the go-ahead to put next-generation lighting systems on cars sold in the US.

NHTSA's main concern is safety. The government body is responsible for recalls and making sure automakers don't put dangerous features or technology into cars that could put drivers, passengers and other people on the road in danger. It's an important job. But its approach to ADB lighting has been possibly a bit too cautious.

During a 2015 study of these types of lights (initiated by Toyota), the department concluded:

That makes it seem like all the test vehicles produced too much light all the time. In reality, the instances during controlled laboratory tests in which the lights produced more glare than a typical low beam from all vehicles were at intersections and some curve maneuvers. Overall, most of the systems worked most of the time. But it wasn't enough to change the rules. Still, automakers continue to try to get the rules changed.

Berlitz said he's met regularly with NHTSA to tell the agency what Audi is working on right now and what it's researching for the future. Those meetings with the technical team go well, but there's the regulatory portion of agency and they've been slow, which can be frustrating for automakers and car buyers who know there's something better and safer out there.

Fortunately, NHTSA has been listening. When contacted about ADB systems the agency sent Engadget the following statement:

NHTSA is working to at least talk about amending the rule. That's a start. Audi has already tackled one of the issues from the NHTSA research in 2015. In automatic mode, the high beams are turned off while in city limits and when the car is going slower than 18.6 miles per hour. No more blinding people at stop signs.

If the rules are changed to allow ADB lights, Audi A7 owners in the US will be happy to know that the Matrix technology hardware is ready to go in their cars. It's turned off now, but once Audi gets the go ahead, it's ready to be turned on at the dealer's.

"Our job has always been to project ourselves into the future," Cesar Muntada, Audi's head of lighting design, said. That future of brighter safer lights is already here. Now we just need the government to let us flip the switch.

Some cars have been sold with a large metal shifting stick in the center console and a third foot lever intended to decouple engine power from the drivetrain. Very few people in the U.S. automotive buying market ever figured out what these strange pieces were intended for, and as a result never bought them.

Now, because the sales rate is so low—Audi told Car & Driver only 5 percent of A4 buyers worldwide chose a no-cost manual transmission option—the company is dropping the shifting stick from the A4 and A5 model line for the 2019 model year. This leaves Audi’s U.S. lineup devoid of any manual transmission options.

Americans, overwhelmingly, are choosing to have their car shift for them. Audi, seeing that trend, is more than happy to provide automatic gearbox cars for Americans to buy. My favorite small sports sedan, the S3, does not come with a manual option, even though it is essentially a VW Golf R (which does offer a manual) with a trunk. It, the various guises of TT, and the R8 would all be made better with a manual option, says I.

Audi knows that there is no fiscal point to offering a manual option for that scant 5 percent of buyers. For those of us who enjoy the lost art of driving a manual transmission, it’s a little bit sad to see the German sport-lux brand drop the option from their entire lineup. My daily driver is an Audi with a manual transmission.

Rest peacefully sweet manually-shifted Audi A4 and A5. You were unappreciated in your time, and have gone from your delicate existence far too soon. Your absence shall be mourned. The burden of your death shall weigh heavily upon each of us who chose not to buy while the option was ours to choose.

Samsung’s Intros Exynos Auto V9 SoC: Octa-A76 Chip to Power Audi’s In-Vehicle Infotainment System

January 3, 2019

Samsung today rolled out its new Exynos Auto V9 SoC, announcing that the automotive-focused SoC will power Audi’s in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system that will debut by 2021. Samsung’s first SoC for automobiles complies with Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL)-B requirements, it integrates ARM’s latest CPU and GPU technology as well as supports multiple screens and cameras.

The Samsung Exynos Auto V9 packs eight Arm Cortex-A76 cores running at 2.1 GHz, but the company does not disclose whether it uses Cortex-A76AE designed specifically for automotive applications or just regular ones. On the graphics side of things, the SoC integrates three dedicated sets of Arm Mali G76 GPUs (i.e., that can work completely separately) to drive cluster display, central information display (CID) and rear-seat entertainment (RSE) displays simultaneously. In addition, the processor features a (presumably custom) neural network processing unit (NPU) to process visual and audio data for face, speech, and gesture recognition. Besides, the Exynos Auto V9 four HiFi 4 DSPs for audio, and a safety island core to protect system operations in real time that supports ASIL-B standards. The chip can work with current-gen LPDDR4 as well as upcoming LPDDR5 types of memory.

Samsung’s first SoC for in-vehicle infotainment applications supports up to six monitors and 12 camera connections, which should be enough for advanced autopilot capabilities (just to put it into context: Tesla's AutoPilot 2.0 only uses one camera for autopilot right now), though since the latter will be implemented by Audi, Samsung does not make any comments on the matter.

Samsung will use its 8LPP process technology to manufacture the chip. Meanwhile, Audi will use the Exynos Auto V9 for its IVI system that is set to debut by 2021. In general, expect the SoC to power vehicles that will arrive in 2020 and later.

At present Samsung already supplies Audi with its OLED displays, so the new agreement is a natural extension of the partnership between the two companies.

The engineers have figured out a way to make the 2.5-liter unit comply with future stricter emissions regulations.

Audi dominated the International Engine Of The Year Awards in the 2.0- to 2.5-liter displacement class for nine consecutive years before being dethroned in 2019 by Porsche’s flat-four turbocharged 2.5-liter unit powering the Boxster S and Cayman S. If you’re a fan of Audi’s five-cylinder, you’ll be happy to hear the engine is sticking around despite the downsizing trend.

Some folks had been worried stricter emissions laws like the upcoming Euro 7 regulations would force Audi to kill off the 2.5-liter five-cylinder to replace it with a smaller 2.0-liter four-banger, but that’s not going to happen in the foreseeable future. The reveal was made by Audi Sport’s managing director, Oliver Hoffmann, in an interview with Australian magazine WhichCar.

The boss of Audi’s go-faster division is confident the five-cylinder mill will fully comply with more stringent regulations as the division he’s running has a “very, very good concept to reach those standards.” His sentiments were echoed by Audi Sport’s product planner, Annette Möllhoff, who mentioned the 2.5-liter engine represents the “number one unique selling proposition” in cars like the RS3 and TT RS.

Audi Sport’s technical project manager, Sebastian Grossert, told WhichCar they’ve been working on making the engine compliant with tougher regulations for about a year to make sure they’ll be able to install it in next-generation cars. These will include not just the usual RS3 Sportback and RS3 Sedan, but also the Q3 RS and the new RS Q3 Sportback we spotted just yesterday.

One way to make the five-cylinder meet with stricter regulations is to electrify it by implementing a mild hybrid system, while cylinder deactivation tech and a belt-driven starter/generator also represent a possibility.

With Audi Sport promising to keep the 2.5-liter engine alive, we’re back to wondering whether VW will finally launch that five-cylinder Golf R they’ve been teasing for years. Fingers crossed it will happen for the hatchback’s impending eighth generation.

The 2021 Audi e-tron Sportback and e-tron SUV will finally get the company’s digital matrix LED headlamps. The lights feature 1.3 million micromirrors and can now offer five welcome and exit lighting signatures with motion graphics. Those lights have even more functionality in Europe, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Here and now, on U.S. streets, the lights project a 50-meter “light carpet” that keeps the light within the driver’s lane, and then extends it right or left to avoid oncoming traffic. The low beams stick to the ground below oncoming traffic and illuminate people, animals and objects on the side of the road. One of the coolest features is the tire marks projected on the ground in front of the vehicle to help avoid hazards like potholes, debris and the like. Those million mirrors are automatically adjusted 5,000 times per second.

Audi notes the lights’ total functionality “is not fully available in the U.S.,” and that “the brand continues to work with government officials in an effort to do so for U.S. customers.”

The reason we’re still waiting on full functionality is because of a law written right as the first Chevrolet Camaro was hitting the streets in 1967. It’s called Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108, or FMVSS 108 for short.

From Audi: “Long story very short: Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) state that headlights have to have a dedicated low beam and a high beam. Adaptive driving beams (ADB), Matrix beam and DML headlights, can shine their high beams while redirecting beams to not blind oncoming traffic, using the windshield-mounted camera.”

In Europe, Audi’s digital lights can stay in high beam mode, but punch out holes for oncoming traffic or pedestrians. Check out this video, shot when Audi showed off the new headlights for journalists at the LA Auto Show, to see the unrestricted functionality.

Engineers from the Society of Automotive Engineers, among other organizations, have submitted recommendations on these new lights, which several manufacturers besides Audi are looking into (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota).

Audi originally petitioned NHTSA in 2013 along with Toyota and others, and the organization was taking public comments about ADB (adaptive driving beams) as recently as 2018, but there has yet to be a ruling. We talked to NHTSA rep Kathryn Henry who only said, “NHTSA is working to finalize the rulemaking for adaptive driving beam headlamps in 2020.” According to the reginfo.gov database the issue is in the “Final Rule Stage.” The outfit declined to share a more specific timeline.

So, as they say, keep your phones on. These new Audi e-tron EVs will get these new trick lights; hopefully we’ll get the full functionality versions soon. For safety!

Audi is giving its A4 and A6 models an end date as combustion engines. The same is said to apply to the A8. Even in plug-in hybrids Audi apparently no longer wants to invest heavily. These decisions are likely to be the cornerstones of the exit plan from the internal combustion engine drawn up under Audi CEO Markus Duesmann.

These steps are mentioned in a portrait of Duesmann, who has been at the helm of the VW subsidiary in Ingolstadt for three quarters of a year, in the German publication Manager Magazin. Specifically, it says that new versions of the A4 and A6 will be launched again from 2023 and electric variants will follow a little later, but that Audi does not even want to offer the mid-range models as internal combustion engines until the end of their life. Ergo, the end will be before 2030.

As for the A8, it is said that it will be refreshed again at the end of 2021. That is supposed to be the last measure. Audi also apparently no longer wants to rely on plug-in hybrids. Manager Magazin reports that Duesmann considers them to be discontinued models and indirectly quotes him as saying that politics will no longer promote the technology after the federal elections in autumn 2021 at the latest, and that customers will then lose interest. Almost a fortnight ago, the Audi boss had already told another German business paper Wirtschaftswoche that he was currently working on a concrete timetable for phasing out the internal combustion engine “in the next 10, maybe 15 years”.

Instead of internal combustion engines, pure electric cars are moving into focus in Ingolstadt. Duesmann has underlined this with the electric showcase project Artemis, which was set up shortly after he took office. According to a report published by Automobilwoche at the beginning of the year, the study for the first Audi model under Artemis is to be presented at the IAA this autumn. The start of series production is planned for the end of 2024. Duesmann recently said that the model will be neither a large sedan above the A8 nor a large SUV above the Q7: “It will be a new vehicle category that will be called neither A nor Q.” To date, Audi has entered the premium electric car market with its e-tron models.

May 2018 is when Volvo confirmed that it’s not going to develop a new generation of diesel engines. Many other automakers have followed suit, and seven major semi-truck brands decided to phase out diesel by 2040.
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Internal combustion’s days are numbered in Europe, and there’s no escaping it. In addition to bans on the sale of new fossil-fuel cars, legislators in Brussels are putting the finishing touches on the EU-7 emissions standard. Described as a de facto ban on internal combustion engines by a trade association, the current draft of the regulation requires a decrease of 60 to 90 percent.

A very optimistic target by all accounts, this decrease of emissions has been lambasted by Volkswagen as complex and costly. Mercedes-Benz has also voiced its opposition to the EU-7 regulation, which it deems not feasible.

Audi, which is an important member of the Volkswagen Group, took a more drastic measure by stopping the development of next-generation internal combustion engines. Speaking to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, head honcho Markus Duesmann made it clear that Audi will adapt existing combustion engines to EU-7 emission targets at great expense.

Experts and automakers alike claim that Euro 7 will be fatal for every player in the automotive industry. Promoting eco-friendly electric mobility is one thing, but advancing electric mobility while electric vehicles are still expensive and the charging infrastructure still isn’t up to snuff is wishful thinking at best.

Even though electric vehicles are the way forward for the four-ringed automaker in Europe, combustion-engined cars won’t disappear from the lineup anytime soon. More to the point, the Ingolstadt-based giant will continue to sell Euro 6 and 7 vehicles in various parts of the world where the legislation is milder and the charging infrastructure isn’t developed.

Audi, together with Porsche, is also looking into synthetic fuels that burn cleaner than gasoline and diesel. There is, however, a problem with synthetic fuels because mass adoption is expected to happen in 2030 at the earliest.

Audi indicated this week it intends to phase out production of internal combustion engines by 2033, and that it will only launch new EV models starting 2026, representing an acceleration of Volkswagen AG's electrification plans. The goals were revealed this week by Audi CEO Markus Duesmann.

The bold plan, part of Audi's goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, states that production of the last newly developed internal combustion engine model will begin relatively soon, in just four years, with the Ingolstadt-based automaker transitioning to an an all-EV lineup.

"Through our innovative strength, we offer individuals sustainable and carbon-neutral mobility options," Duesmann said. "I don’t believe in the success of bans. I believe in the success of technology and innovation."

Of course, Audi also has to account for a variety of markets where demand for gas engines won't fade so fast, including plenty of countries in Europe and Asia not quick to adopt EVs. Audi acknowledged this issue a bit in respect to China following Duesmann's comments, but didn't say whether the automaker had a similar plan for eastern Europe and other regions. Still, the automaker noted that the timing of these goals was not written in stone and would depend on several external factors.

"The exact timing of the combustion engine's discontinuation at Audi will ultimately be decided by customers and legislation," the automaker noted. "The company expects to see continued demand in China beyond 2033, which is why there could be a supply of vehicles there with combustion engines manufactured locally."

Another external factor that could affect Ingolstadt's timing, of course, is the development of charging infrastructure—something that continues to be a thorn in many automakers' sides. There are some worries in the industry that if charging infrastructure does not keep pace, EVs may remain a niche, alternative technology that could be permanently stuck at some minor level of market share, perhaps not even exceeding 20% a decade from now. That would certainly affect the plans of several automakers that had announced long-term plans to switch to all-EV lineups in the next two decades, and force them to backtrack.

Audi has introduced the first of three futuristic concept cars it created to showcase the technology and design cues it will incorporate into its range in the coming years. Called SkySphere, the first concept is a luxurious electric roadster with a wheelbase that can be modified by the driver and a handful of clever heritage-laced styling cues.

Designed digitally in Malibu, California, the SkySphere stretches about 204 inches long and 78 inches wide, dimensions that make it about an inch shorter and six inches wider than the Horch 853. What's a Horch? Glad you asked: It's one of the brands that merged to form Auto Union, which later became Audi, and it stood proud as one of Germany's most prestigious automakers during the 1930s. It was widely celebrated as Mercedes-Benz's only true German rival. It's this spirit and positioning that designers wanted to recapture when they drew the SkySphere.

Going full retro, Volkswagen New Beetle-style, was out of the question, and the SkySphere looks like it belongs in a science fiction movie. LED technology creates a new interpretation of Audi's familiar Singleframe grille. And yet, there are a number of retro touches concealed in the design. For example, the shape of the 23-inch wheels was inspired by the wire wheels fitted to the 853. It's functional, too, because each group of spokes channels cooling air to the regenerative braking system that helps increase driving range. Suicide doors forge another link to the past.Here is Audi's curveball: The SkySphere's wheelbase can be adjusted by nearly 10 inches. Engineers developed a system that consists of body and frame components designed to slide into each other to give the driver the option of choosing a short- or a long-wheelbase car. Selecting a driving mode named Sport locks in the short wheelbase and takes advantage of the rear-wheel steering system to deliver sharp, nimble handling. Dialing in the Grand Touring mode increases the space between the axles to clear up a generous amount of room for the occupants. When this profile is selected, the steering wheel and the pedals disappear into the dashboard as Level 4 autonomous technology drives the car. The two passengers are free to read a book, take in the scenery or work on the go.



Power is provided by an electric motor mounted over the rear axle. It zaps the rear wheels with 623 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque by drawing electricity from a lithium-ion battery pack. That's enough for a four-second sprint from 0-60 mph, according to Audi. The company adds that the concept weighs about 4,000 pounds, and that around 60% of the mass is located on the rear axle thanks to a two-part battery pack. Around 70% of the cells are stuffed in the space between the seats and the rear axle, while the rest are integrated between the seats.

The interior is just as futuristic as the exterior, it's dominated by screens and touch-sensitive surfaces, but it doesn't look out of reach. This is the direction the car industry is going in: more digital, more entertainment and more connectivity. "We're transforming the car into an experience device thanks to digitalization," Audi explained to Autoblog. That doesn't mean the SkySphere will replace the R8 at the top of the the company's range, however.

"We'll see a lot [of the SkySphere], but not in that form. It will be a lot of elements, this is really showing us Audi's upcoming design language. You can imagine elements like the front, or maybe the way we work on the surfaces, that we get into production," Gael Buzyn, the director of Audi's Malibu design studio, told Autoblog.

Audi will unveil the SkySphere on August 13, 2021, on the Pebble Beach golf course in California. Looking ahead, the next two concepts in the series are called GrandSphere and UrbanSphere, respectively. The first looks like a limousine-like sedan with unusual proportions and a living room-like cabin; it will make its public debut at the 2021 edition of the Munich auto show that opens its doors on September 7. The second is a taller model that seemingly blurs the line between a minivan and a crossover. It will be presented in Shanghai, China, at some point in 2022.

https://news.goodyear.eu/goodyear-ea...san-francisco/
The tires fitted to the Audi e-tron meet the German manufacturer’s demanding mileage requirements. As electric vehicles operate with higher torque compared to cars with a combustion engine, tire wear is up to 25% higher but thanks to technically advanced construction, the Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3 SUV is able to address these challenges.