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2016 Technology of the Year Finalist: Audi Virtual Cockpit

The heart of most infotainment systems is a touchscreen in the center console. In many systems, some information can be sent to the gauge cluster in slightly redacted form – stripped-down navigation commands, basic audio info, that sort of thing. To get the full story, the driver has to take their eyes off the road and look to the middle of the dashboard. Audi's Virtual Cockpit, in essence, ditches the center screen and places all that information in the gauge cluster. The high-resolution TFT screen is just over a foot wide, and it has two main modes: Classic view, and Infotainment view. Classic looks like many other traditional TFT gauge clusters, with large traditional gauges and the ability to display a decent amount of information in the space in-between. Go into Infotainment view, and the gauges shrink and head to the lower corners, freeing up a much larger amount of real estate for, say, the nav system map. The gauges also get out of the way when utilizing the menu, entering a destination, or that sort of thing. The four main modes are standard stuff. Virtual Cockpit will show you navigation, media, phone, and trip computer information in large or small formats. You interact with Virtual Cockpit with a familiar MMI wheel-type controller in the center console, like in many other Audis, or with buttons and a scroll/push wheel on the left side of the steering wheel. Climate control functions are handed by physical controls cleverly integrated in the center three vents. It takes a lot of processing power to make all this work as well as it does, and that's handled by NVIDIA's Tegra 3 processor – a quad-core processor usually seen in tablets and smartphones. The system is quick and responsive, and we found the high-resolution screen to be impressively sharp. If there's a downside, it's that Virtual Cockpit doesn't leave an opportunity for a passenger to step in and, say, enter a destination or change the radio station without altering what's right in front of the driver. It could be inconvenient at best, distracting at worst, to have the nav system directions you're trying to follow suddenly be superseded by the audio menu. Adding a small secondary screen for the passenger could be one fix; a connected companion smartphone app another. In the meantime, it's an impressive implementation of a clever idea.

Xcar flogs the 2016 Audi RS3

In its latest video, Xcar reckons that just as hypercars from brands like Pagani and Koenigsegg are taking supercars to a new level, the hyper hatch is now supplanting the hot hatch. Roughly defined as three- and five-door models making well in excess 300 horsepower, the reviewer holds up the new Audi RS3 as the poster child for this high-speed revolution that brings huge performance in a quite useful package. With 362 hp and 343 pound-feet of torque from its 2.5-liter turbocharged five-cylinder and a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, the RS3 certainly doesn't lack for performance. Audi claims that it can get to 62 miles per hour in 4.3 seconds and to a top speed of 174 miles per hour. Xcar portrays that power as quite livable, though. Apparently, this hyper hatch is made less for top performance at the track, than being sublime on the road. It seems that this hyper hatch isn't destined for these shores, though. Audi isn't bringing the five-door RS3 to the US, but a version in the body of the A3 sedan is highly rumored. If it's as wonderful as Xcar portrays the five-door, then this might be one to look forward to.

2014 Audi RS7 priced from $104,900* in the US [w/video]

Audi has officially priced the svelte 2014 RS7 from $104,900 (*not including $825 for destination), undercutting its sole competitor, the BMW M6 Gran Coupe, by $8100. Even when we're talking about six-figure super sedans, that's not a small amount of money. And soon, this class of sleek stormers will be joined by the updated Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG 4Matic.
With its combination of a twin-turbocharged, 4.0-liter, 560-horsepower V8 engine and Audi's excellent Quattro all-wheel drive, the RS7 is expected to hit 60 miles per hour in just 3.7 seconds, 0.4 seconds faster than the manufacturer estimate for the M6 Gran Coupe.
We've already given the RS7 a thorough shakedown in Europe, and we came away quite impressed with just how stunning this Audi is, both to drive and to look at. Now that we've got a price to go along with the performance and style, this Audi is even more appealing - in our high-dollar dreams, anyway. Take a look at a short video from Audi, as well as the official press blast, below.