Audi's Future: Self-Driving Cars, Dual HUDs, LTE

Some smart stuff by Audi, see below. Clearly, a car than can be both self-driven or driven by me, and maybe does not have a tailpipe (it would be crucial, in my view, to be fully electric rather than hybrid), and is fully connected to all kinds of digital services, will be very popular. Just think of the possibility of facilitated car-sharing using social networks - how much traffic reduction could we achieve with that? And better yet, maybe the car becomes our small private office and we don't actually drive much in it, at all;).

Either way, car companies are becoming lifestyle providers, in a way. And selling stuff becomes... selling a service.

Audi's Future: Self-Driving Cars, Dual HUDs, LTE | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Within that time period, or within the next decade, Audi also hopes to be able to launch so-called ITS-G5 or automotive WLAN technology into something it calls “street preview”. Using a 5.9-GHz wireless radio, cars would talk to themselves in clusters, reporting their own traffic information. The technology also could improve safety, warning other vehicles automatically as cars approach an intersection. Audi executives also said that they’re showing off a dual “contact-analog” heads-up display at CES, which provides an augmented-realit view of the environment - for example, painting a directional arrow directly over the intersection, and adjusting its size and positioning as the car gets closer. Pedestrians would be shown using night vision mode, and the distance to the car ahead would also be shown.

The passenger, meanwhile, will have their own heads-up display, a more conventional model. Audi said its prototype allows the passenger to “swipe” the driver’s display over to the passenger, allowing that person to see what the driver sees. Not surprisingly, Audi’s vision also includes a self-driving car, of sorts. “Our vision is piloted driving,” Hudi said. “Whenever I don’t [want] to drive, I allow myself to be driven.” “We don’t want to crate an impersonal body moving machine,” Hudi added. “When I want to have fun, I drive for myself.”

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• Start Your Engines! Connected Cars at CES (readwriteweb.com)