How Audi is answering tomorrow’s issues today
What will our cities look like in the future, and how will we move around them? These are two of the key questions being asked by scientists, designers and trend forecasters as urban populations soar, and more of us take to the roads than ever before.
However, more of us using roads won’t necessarily translate into more people owning cars. Instead of privately owned vehicles, in the future cars will likely be shared, hired or used via systems that reflect our changing needs. Jan Michel, Audi’s Chief Strategic Officer, certainly thinks so. “It is clear that ownership will decrease in the future. But this development offers a lot of opportunities for us.”
Nevertheless, this will still translate as an increase in the number of vehicles on the road, and that creates significant environmental challenges - namely more pollution, more congestion and more waste – clearly something the planet cannot sustain. Designers therefore must find ways to address this and work towards a different future, one that is not only smart, clean and electric-powered, but more in-sync with the way that a future facing population travels.
These challenges, according to Michel, offer brands the chance to fundamentally re-think their approach to vehicle production – as well as ownership. “We need to reduce the carbon footprint of our future mobility,” he continues. “Our aim is for all our production sites to become Co2 neutral, resources to be recycled, water to be reused and introduce 100 per cent green electricity… This strategy was the basis for our current product offensive and the push for E-mobility. The plan for 2025 is for the Audi product portfolio to include more than 30 models with E-engines, which would mean 40 per cent of our sales volume worldwide.”
How is the world likely to change?
There’s a general consensus that, in the future, time and productivity will become precious commodities. “We all know the old cliché that ‘Time is Money’ but have we ever thought to turn that around and think that maybe ‘Money is Time’?” asked digital consumer strategist Will Jenkins in his recent TED talk.
People have long been using money to ‘buy’ themselves more time, whether that’s paying extra for fast-track airport access or opting for a shop-bought meal instead of a homemade one. This desire to have more time (rather than money) is only set to increase in the future.
Transport’s on the move
The knock-on effect of this preoccupation with time over money is that how we get around will change beyond all recognition. Forget waiting at wet bus stops or on cold train platforms; the way we use public transport will be revolutionized. Audi have some smart ideas here: “Electric, automated vehicles and mobility-as-a-service can be combined and efficiently networked with infrastructure and public transit systems. Sensors, data, and learning algorithms will ensure perfect routing, and the flow of traffic will be optimized step by step,” says Michel. Just think, a quick bit of tapping on your phone and you needn’t step outside until the number 37 bus is right there waiting.
Then there’s all the excitement around driverless cars, which has led innovative brands like Audi to realize they need to rethink not just their car models, but their business models too. “Electrification, autonomous driving and mobility services are disrupting our industry,” says Michel. “Older persons, children, and people without a driver’s license will want to use convenient autonomous cars in the future. Time can be passed usefully here; passengers can talk, relax or work.”
As well as everything that you can do (or not do for that matter), now that the car’s driving itself, minutes are also saved because you’re in a vehicle optimized to travel in the most time-efficient way. Autonomous vehicles communicate with each other, other road users, and street infrastructure to prevent traffic and maintain the flow of traffic. “In such a holistic system, there won’t be any congestion in the city of the future,” Michel continues. Experts believe this could reduce journeys in cities by one-third, giving commuters back more of their valuable time.
Mobility not motors
The cars of tomorrow won’t just save you time in getting from A to B, but inherently change the way cities operate. Michel posits, “The next challenge is the fact that in 2030 more than 60 per cent of the world population will be living in cities. We have to think of new mobility solutions for megacities and suburban areas.”
With a population of six million people and 1.74 million cars, Wuxi, northwest of Shanghai, might not be a megacity (yet – the definition is a city with a population of more than 10 million), but it’s on its way to becoming a seriously smart one. Autonomous vehicles have already been trialled on the city streets, able to ‘talk’ to traffic lights, electronic street signs, and other road users, all via Wi-Fi. As a result, the roads of Wuxi have unimpeded traffic flows and much safer roads. No wonder the Chinese government wants to roll out the same technology to 90 per cent of its cities by 2022. Similarly, in Tallinn, Estonia, autonomously driven buses were trialled with much success and popularity.
How Audi is driving forwards
As you’d expect from a brand that’s underpinned by the philosophy of “Vorsprung durch Technik” – or ‘lead by technology’ – Audi is fully embracing this idea of a new dawn in mobility. What’s perhaps surprising, though, is just how far out of the box it is thinking.
Recently, for example, Audi’s own innovators teamed up with the people behind Marvel’s Avengers films, to create the new ‘Holoride’ system – which brings virtual reality to the back seat of the Audi e-tron (Tony Stark’s car of choice). While the car drives itself, players put on an Oculus Rift headset and can join Iron Man to defeat Thanos in Marvel’s Avengers: Rocket’s Rescue Run.
This isn’t your average VR game however, the gaming experience is designed to exactly match the movements of the car. So, if the car takes a left turn, you go left in the game too – reducing motion sickness while giving players a new level of intensity. What’s more, the game is programmed to last the length of your journey – whether that’s five minutes or five hours – avoiding the frustration of having to hit pause when you arrive at your destination. Mike Goslin, Disney’s VP of games and interactive experiences, revealed: “We’re exploring at this point, but we do think there are possibilities…There is a lot of time in vehicles in which we can entertain people.” Watch this space.
However you travel from A to B (and beyond), getting around in the future likely won’t just be by a single mode of transport. Daniela Rus from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology predicts: “A network of vehicles will provide transportation over long distances. There will also be fleets of pods for short hops and for the first- and last-mile part of long journeys.” Our journeys are set to become fragmented yet frictionless.
This is something Audi is working hard to achieve: To help users get to their final destination with the minimum amount of disruption, it’s created the myAudi app. When you select a car, the First Mile Navigation will guide you to where it’s located; at that point, the vehicle itself will take over, whisking you off to your destination while handling driving duties, so you can get on with more important things. As you then approach the end of your journey, technology will kick back in, via the Last Mile Navigation system, which will lead you to your final destination through a network of electric vehicles and micro electric vehicles.
While self-driving cars might still be in the prototype phase and ‘arrival-on-demand’ services in need of refinement, Audi is firmly in the driving seat when it comes to the future of mobility – and it’s going to be one exciting journey.
Further information on official fuel consumption figures and the official specific CO₂ emissions of new passenger cars can be found in the guide “Information on the fuel consumption, CO₂ emissions and electricity consumption of new cars”, which is available free of charge at all sales dealerships and from DAT Deutsche Automobil Treuhand GmbH, Hellmuth-Hirth-Strasse 1, 73760 Ostfildern-Scharnhausen, Germany (www.dat.de).
