Emerging Technologies Blog

How do you imagine future self-driving cars? Cars with weird designs right? But German carmaker Audi see them in a different way. In fact Audi is of the opinion that future autonomous cars will still retain what I call the '''21st century look.'' For instance, your favorite supercar.

At the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show in Asia, Shanghai, China, Audi revealed its new version of the R8 e-tron, the Audi R8 e-tron piloted driving concept. It is a self-driving supercar that doesn't need no one at the wheel to control it.It can drive on its own. Superb!

The self-driving Audi R8 E-tron is a little different from the R8 E-Tron the German car manufacturer showed off at the Geneva Motor Show in March, in that it is fully equipped  with Audi piloted driving technology, which include a new laser scanner, ultrasonic sensors,  an array of video cameras and radar sensors mounted on the front and back of the robotic vehicle.Whether Audi says it won't produce a robot vehicle a driverless car is still a robotic car.

The car has a compact central computer Audi calls Central Driver Assistance Control Unit, or zFAS for short, that make use of all the data  the above technologies gather about the car and its surroundings, for steering,braking at high speeds, detecting pedestrians and road signs etc.

The autonomous Audi E-Tron is pretty fast. It goes from 0-62 miles per hour in less than 4 seconds, and can attain a top speed of either 130 miles per hour or 155.3 miles per hour depending on which tires it is outfitted with. The car can be recharge, which takes just two hours to be fully charged all thanks to the Combined Charging System (CCS) on board, which allows charging with direct and alternating current.It has two electric motors that deliver 456 horsepower.

Audi has been performing tests on piloted or self-driving for a full 15 years at various locations, including on the race track. It aims to bring self-driving cars to market, at least, by 2017. Recently one of its piloted driving concept cars, the Audi R 7 ''Jack'' drove from Silicon Valley to the venue of the CES 2015 in Las Vegas, January.

Nice car and brilliant idea of removing the error human driver from the equation no doubt. But who would buy a supercar and not enjoy driving it, instead hand the fun over to a computer?

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