Audi A7 News

A number of potentially hazardous faults have been identified in vehicles sold in Australia, prompting a wide range of recalls.

Audi and Volkswagen have issued three safety recall notices involving 582,822 vehicles sold exclusively in the United States.

Dieselgate coming home to roost as Audi and VW budgets slashed.

The NSW Police Force has just revealed a new star recruit that would strike fear into the hearts of would-be criminals everywhere.

As the new global boss of VW promises to compensate customers for a loss in resale value, lawyers are lining up in Australia to represent more owners of cars with software that can cheat diesel emissi

Audi's squeaky-clean A7 Sportback h-tron quattro is a shade of green so far unseen.

Audi showed its commitment with a self-driving A7 Sportback that drove itself nearly 1000km to the show, while Mercedes-Benz unveiled a show car called the F 015 that’s all about future luxury but also ticks the box for autonomous driving. But, should a car be encouraged to drive just because it can?I’ve ridden in a BMW 7 Series that can do a brilliant job of driving itself, but only on a very limited 10km stretch of road at home in Germany. It would be a total misfit and a failure in Australia, where the GPS data, road markings, street signs and much more would not allow it to operate.So, we’re unlikely to see self-driving cars here any time soon, if at all.But they’re important because the systems needed for autonomous driving — from stereo vision to automatic braking — are vital as car makers work to give us a world without car crashes. There will always be accidents and incidents and most of them will be caused by driver errors, so driver aids will play an increasing role in cutting the road toll.

Driving is meant to be fun and technology can now take over when it's not, freeing the driver from the tedium of traffic jams. That's the pitch from Mercedes-Benz at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where car makers present their visions of future mobility.Beyond the expected autonomous driving was a shift towards gesture controls to operate in-car systems and even greater internet-based connectivity, giving the tech-savvy occupants more time to work or socialise.As Mercedes-Benz chairman Dr Dieter Zetsche says: "The car is growing beyond its role as a mere means of transport and will ultimately become a mobile living space." Computer-controlled cars are already on the roads - prestige brands use active steering and adaptive cruise control to make the driver's life easier with "semi-autonomous" assistance.Audi showed how that will soon translate into completely hands-free driving by having an A7 Sportback motor 880km from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas. The party trick for the A7 was interacting with cloud-based servers to process data streamed from the vehicle to augment the in-built navigation and adaptively "teach" it about road conditions on the route.Journalists sat behind the wheel during the drive but it was the car that changed lanes, overtook, accelerated and braked on the highways.Audi calls it "piloted driving" and, as with most European makers, insists the autonomous driving is meant to augment the driving experience, not replace it altogether.Benz's take is farther ahead in time and concept, previewing what Mercedes predicts the car will look like by 2030 when most of the world's population will live in cities.Autonomous driving is one of the biggest innovations since the invention of the carDubbed the F015 Luxury in Motion, the concept car dispenses with dash-mounted buttons in favour of a full-width digital dash and a head-up display with augmented reality to show user-defined points of interest on the route.The vehicle's 5.2 metre length houses four swivelling pod-like seats in an open and airy interior intentionally designed to represent a lounge room - or home theatre.Six screens are arrayed around the cabin and can be operated by voice, gesture, eye-tracking or old-fashioned touch (BMW, VW Group and Hyundai are also on board the gesture-recognition bandwagon).The quality of life approach extends outside the vehicle. The F015 scans for pedestrians and, if it determines it can safely stop, will activate a pulsating light from the LED grille (in place of eye contact) to show the pedestrian they've been recognised. A laser then projects a virtual pedestrian crossing, backed by an audible "please go ahead" prompt.When the roads become less congested and more contoured, the driver can swivel his or her seat towards the dash and the wheel will extend automatically for hands-on steering.Benz head of research Dr Thomas Weber says autonomous driving is one of the biggest innovations since the invention of the car."Drivers are relieved of work and stress in situations in which driving is not enjoyable, and the time gained while in their car takes on a whole new quality: the freedom to do other things while driving instead of steering, accelerating and braking," he says.As Ford CEO Mark Fields notes "today there are 25 megacities (with more than 10 million population); by 2030 there will be 41".Anyone who has had to endure peak hour in Melbourne or Sydney - neither of which qualify as megacities - knows how frustrating and time-consuming the process is.Benz and Ford want that time put to more productive, or entertaining, uses. Fields says research shows 39 per cent of Millennials - who are notoriously hard to convince to buy a car - catch public transport because they want to multi-task on the commute to and from work.Car companies are accordingly conceiving cars to let them do just that. Ford chief technical officer Raj Nair says the Sync 3 multimedia system "is another step forward in delivering connectivity features customers most want, and they tell us this kind of technology is an important part of their decision to buy our vehicles".Ford says an average car already produces 25GB of data an hourThis level of connectivity and sensor-based driving is giving rise to "big data" for cars.Ford says an average car already produces 25GB of data an hour and manufacturers are mining that information to assess driving patterns.Sharing the data is an "opt-in" process - Ford provides incentives in the form of discounts - and it is this aspect that third parties are most enthusiastic about.Fields says: "What if you owned a database of all your driving behaviours for all the years since you got your licence? What if this driver score passport could go with you from car to car, no matter the brand? Imagine that you could share that information with insurance companies to get better rates." GM is on the same track and has teamed with a US insurance company to 'provide potential discounted insurance offers" based on a 90-day assessment of driving behaviour."The beauty of this program is that control is in the hands of the customer," GM executive Greg Ross says. "If they wish to participate, we'll inform them of their driving behaviour and then they're able to choose if they want to share their information with an insurance provider."

Audi already has a strong line-up of petrol and diesel engines, and several forays into the possibility of electric and hybrid drivetrains.Now however, comes word that another type of engine juice will be joining the lineup--albeit in prototype form. Mix two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen and what you're left with is water, which is the emissions left behind by the type of fuel cell that Audi is taking a look at for the A7.Fuel cell vehicles utilise hydrogen fuel and pair that abundant element with the oxygen already found in the air. As the hydrogen and oxygen interact through a process known as electrolysis, heat and electricity are generated and the vehicle is provided with power.Audi is wise to examine this technology as the world will never run out of hydrogen, though obtaining it using current means (via steam-methane reforming) produces a lot of CO2. The A7 however, is a bit of an interesting platform on which to test and Audi has shown that it can generate hydrogen in a clean way. Using electricity generated from wind farms, Audi can use a reverse-electrolysis process to generate hydrogen.We're a bit surprised that Audi wouldn't consider the A3 sedan or hatchback for this endeavour. Still, it's only a test at this point to determine the feasibility of putting a fuel cell-equipped vehicle into the product lineup. Per Autocar, the project kicks off sometime towards the end of August.Should everything go well it will be interesting to see where Audi decides to apply the technology in a consumer application. The current network of hydrogen fuelling stations is not exactly bustling.www.motorauthority.com 

Kids aren’t usually a factor in Car of the Year judging.  But child friendliness rates highly with women buying cars – and with women judging cars.The countdown has been kicked off to decide the Women’s World Car of the Year, and the kid factor is one the judges pay a lot of attention to.“Statistics show that women drive children in cars significantly more often than men – and that means women need to take that into account, both when buying and as judges of cars,” WCOTY president Sandy Myhre said from New Zealand.“Any woman who has grappled constantly with child seats and belts and children considers those things when looking at buying a car.  Men might too but the fact is, women drive children in cars more than men.“Women would not consider that aspect in a Porsche 911 more than a bloke. The point is, it can be considered in these awards - and that is one of the points of difference in these awards.”Myhre points out that significant research into buying habits show that in addition to buying for themselves, women have a major influence in household purchase decisions for big ticket items.Ford Australia, for example, says their research shows that women are behind the majority of purchases of the Territory SUV – either as single women buying one, or in influencing the joint decision with their partner. “A report from Mattingly & Associates in Australia concluded, in part, that businesses that didn't understand this influence would be hard-pressed to stay in business.  That report was aptly called 'When I've Made Up Our Minds',” Myhre says.However, the kid factor is just one of the criteria by which the 2012 Women’s World Car of the Year will be judged.There are four categories in the Women's World Car of the Year – Family Car, Luxury Car, Sports Car and Economy Car. Points are allocated to each of ten criteria: driveability, engineering, comfort, child friendliness, style, interior, storage, dashboard efficiency, carbon footprint and colour range.The 20 judges from eleven countries have submitted their own personal short list and more than 300 cars were suggested. These individual choices were then whittled down to form a master list of 32 in terms of popularity. Judges will now allocate points for these cars from a criteria list.The announcement of the winning cars in each category and the supreme winner will be made before the end of March. The supreme award trophy and category certificates will be presented to the car companies concerned at the Mondial de l’Automobile 2012 – the Paris Motor Show – in September. The supreme trophy will this year be made in The Netherlands. Category-winner certificates will be designed at Peartree Studios in Colerne, UK.The first winner of the Women's World Car of the Year was the Jaguar XF in 2010 and the trophy made in South Africa was presented at the Jaguar boutique showroom in Knightsbridge, London. In 2011 there was a dead-heat between the Citroen DS3 and the BMW 5 Series. The two trophies made in India were presented at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2011.