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Audi joins the car-sharing party with Shared Fleet

Seeing the success Zipcar and Daimler's Car2Go, more auto manufacturers are cutting out the middleman and jumping into the car sharing business. General Motors, Ford, and BMW have all introduced or announced their own programs. And now Audi has now thrown their hat into the ring with its Shared Fleet program. Like its competitors, Shared Fleet will be accessed through an app. The fleet consists of a mere three all-new and fully loaded 2017 Audi A4s and will be rolled out in a small pilot program in Durham, North Carolina. Audi plans a nationwide fleet for sometime in 2017. Through the app, customers will be able to locate and unlock vehicles. Pricing is currently unknown, but it is likely to be based off the time used, not the distance driven. The pilot program will be based at American Underground, a technology incubator in North Carolina. This will give Audi the chance to get the program into the hands of tech savvy users who have likely used competing programs. More than 700 employees at 200 companies are based at the facility. This isn't Audi's first foray into the car rental business. They previously invested a large amount into Silvercar. They also operate Audi on Demand in San Francisco, a similar program to Shared Fleet. With Audi on Demand, users can drop cars off at their destinations. Related Video:

2015 Audi A3 gets augmented reality app in place of owners manual [w/video]

There have been a few, seemingly half-hearted, attempts at reinventing the owner's manual - that thick stack of bone-dry information that you only look at if you're well and truly stumped. Hyundai tried swapping in iPads with the Equus, which didn't really take, while Chrysler switched its owner's manuals to digital form in 2010. Chrysler subsidiary Dodge even released a smart phone app that included all the info contained in the paper manual.
Audi, though, may have taken things to their logical conclusion - augmented reality. While it'll likely be more practical once Google Glass and other wearable tech is adopted on a wide scale, augmented reality allows users to project information on scenes, usually through a phones camera, which is how Audi does it.
Called eKurzinfo, the app looks through your phones camera to identify and explain different parts of the car. According to Metaio, the app's developer, the app recognizes 300 different parts of the car. Our sister site, Engadget, provides the best example of the app's abilities - if you point it at the engine temperature gauge, the app tells you what the gauge measures, and if the reading is too high, eKurzinfo will even show you where to find the coolant tank.

Audi shows off the Prologue Avant Concept as a plug-in hybrid

The Audi Prologue Avant Concept goes in a different direction than the Prologue coupe, in more ways than just its five-door wagon body. The coupe was first shown at the LA Auto Show with a 4.0-liter, twin-turbo V8, then went redux at CES as a hybrid with a total of 677 horsepower and 701 pound-feet of torque. The only-slightly-larger Prologue Avant sticks with the hybrid but gets the system from the Q7 E-Tron quattro, meaning a 3.0-liter, twin-turbo V6 TDI with 353 hp and a 100-kW electric motor strapped to the eight-speed transmission. Total output is 455 hp and 553 lb-ft, pure electric range is 33 miles, and 0-62 miles per hour comes in 5.1 seconds. The forward section of cabin with its screen-based Tie Fighter displays and controls comes over from the coupe, as well as the four individual seats, but the Avant lavishes attention on rear passengers in ways not possible in the two-door. They also get a screen on the pass-through center console for convenience controls, and detachable OLED screens - a la the detachable tablets in the Q7 - with which they can send information to the front occupants. As a traditional Audi avant is to a coupe relative, the Prologue Avant is all about bringing the family along on the digital highway. We'll see it at the Geneva Motor Show next week, and Audi is again talking up how the design language will migrate to production cars. It also makes noises in the press release below about near-production many of the technologies are in the concept, so it looks like there could be all sorts of Easter Eggs on the way from the Ingolstadt brand. Related Video: Sporty and elegant, versatile and connected – the Audi prologue Avant show car - New interpretation of the Avant philosophy - Groundbreaking infotainment architecture and entertainment concept - High-performance hybrid drive with 455 hp and 750 Nm (553.2 lb-ft) of torque Ingolstadt, 2015-02-25 -- A design with dynamic elegance and the latest high end technologies: The Audi prologue Avant show car with its stretched roof which the brand is presenting at the Geneva Motor Show gives a look into the future – with the new and emotion filled design language that Audi has initiated with its study in the coupe, the prologue. A glance into the future In November 2014 at the Los Angeles Motorshow, Audi presented the Audi prologue concept car, giving a look to the brand's future design language.