Audi working on ‘DNA’ project to inform its future self-driving, electric cars
Audi is working on a project to figure out just exactly what an Audi feels like. The aim is to make its highly automated electric cars drive themselves the same way.
It might sound odd that the company doesn’t actually know. In the past it was highly differentiated: first or nearly first with four-wheel-drive, five-cylinder turbo engines, twin-clutch transmissions, aluminium bodies. Now it has similar electric drives to its rivals’. And perhaps similar driver assist too. That’s why I asked the firm’s boss of R&D, Oliver Hoffmann, how he will make his cars distinctive.
“We are running a project on Audi DNA, to describe how an Audi car feels in the future. We have partnerships with universities and we are working on this phenomenon. With sound, with suspension, all these behaviours. And of everything you can touch in an Audi. Believe me you will feel if you are driving an Audi rather than competitor cars, although there’s no longer a V8 or something.”
He adds Audi is planning to transfer this ‘feeling’ to the way its cars eventually drive autonomously. Can he be more specific? “First of all, what you see, or which kind of information you will get during your autonomous drive. This is important. It’s what you need to get confidence. That’s the first step.
