Audi autonomous car review | video

Meet the car you can drive with your eyes closed. This otherwise anonymous-looking Audi A7 Sportback will slam the brakes and call the police if you fall asleep at the wheel. It’s an experimental vehicle for now, but is yet another critical step towards the automation of the automobile. Experts predict drivers could be redundant by 2030.

The latest technology can already steer around bends, keep you wandering from your lane, automatically creep forward in stop-start traffic without needing to touch the pedals -- and brake suddenly if you’re about to rear-end the car in front. 

A year ago, the computer power to run Audi’s experimental car took up the entire boot; the latest version has a brain the size of a lap-top and processes 2.5 billion bits of information per second. With improvements in technology, Dr Giesler says the complete automation of the automobile is only a matter of time.

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“How long before we are in the cities (with partial autonomous technology)? I’d say 2025,” said Dr Giesler. “How long before we can actually handle all of city traffic without any human intervention? I’d say 2030 or 2040. City traffic is just so, so complex that’s there’s always going to be a situation where the driver needs to come back to the driving task. I don’t think (technology) can handle everything the city can throw at you right now. That’s going to take a long time.”