2001 Audi Tt Quattro Roadster Convertible 2-door Awd Turbo! on 2040-cars

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Audi Adaptive Cruise Control | 2017 Autoblog Technology of the Year Finalist

Not your father's cruise control, Audi's adaptive system is another step on the road to autonomous driving. That earns it a spot as one of our Technology of the Year finalists. Audi Adaptive Cruise Control can slow down or speed up your vehicle depending on the conditions. It's also capable of coming to a full stop and then resuming speed. This allows the vehicle to move with traffic without engagement from the driver using Traffic Jam Assist at speeds up to 40 miles per hour. It's not being marketed as an auto-pilot setup. Rather, this system can increase driver safety by automatically braking as the vehicle in front slows and then accelerating once the path becomes clear. The cruise control has five programmable settings to regulate distance between vehicles. Linked with the navigation system, Audi's ACC suite uses a camera and radar to respond to its environment, a key development for future systems that will need to communicate with the grid. The system can read street signs, allowing it to slow down or speed up. Additionally, when a destination is set, the vehicle will automatically brake when a turn is looming to alert the driver he or she needs to take action. It will brake through the turn and then speed up upon completing the maneuver. We especially liked this, as many navigation systems don't inform the driver when to turn or take an exit until the last possible moment. Further, when navigating curves, the Audi system will brake the vehicle and resume speed as conditions require. This Adaptive Cruise Control is a layer of artificial intelligence we can get on board with. It's like having a co-pilot to assist the driver when the inevitable fatigue or distractions appear. It engages like a normal cruise control system. Simply pull the stalk in the steering wheel mount, and there's a button to modulate the distance. We tested Audi's Adaptive Cruise Control on an A4, where it is an $1,800-option as part of the Driver Assistance Package. Working in combination with Audi's Virtual Cockpit and head-up display, ACC provides the driver a sense of awareness and greater level of information than other systems on the road. Companies like Volvo and Porsche offer similar setups, but we like the intuitiveness of the Audi program. Automakers have been saying for years that the autonomous technology is essentially here, they just need the infrastructure and regulations to catch up.

2014 Audi SQ5

No Diesel? No Problem
With the exception of a handful of markets (including the US), the Audi SQ5 was a pioneer for the company's S/RS performance line as it was the first model to wear the badge and also get diesel power. Our general "everything is better with a diesel" mentality was put to the test when we first heard we would be getting a non-diesel SQ5 in the US (despite the availability of the diesel-powered Q5 TDI here already), but as usual we can only blame our federal emissions standards. As Audi tells it, the SQ5 TDI engine would require AdBlue to meet US emissions regulations, and the packaging of such a system just wasn't possible, so the global SQ5's diesel engine was replaced by a gasoline-powered V6 borrowed from the Audi S4/S5. To show that little, if anything, was lost in translation from diesel to gas, we headed to southwestern Colorado to spend an afternoon with the all-new 2014 Audi SQ5.
Our drive program had us taking the SQ5 from Durango, CO to the city of Gateway, before heading to Grand Junction the next morning. There's nothing like spending five hours strapped into a seat, traversing hill and mountain, to truly test a vehicle's comfort and driving dynamics. From the first touch of the SQ5's push-button starter, we knew this was no ordinary Q5. As the engine came to life with a deep burble and raspy pops, and we spent the rest of the day trying to come to terms with the fact that not everything needs a diesel. Wait. What?!

More automakers working to turn your smartphone into a shareable digital car key

The smartphone killed the phone book, audio player, the pocket digital camera, handheld GPS devices and voice recorders. Now that addictive, transistor-filled candy bar is coming for your car keys. The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) announced that it's unveiled Digital Key Release 1.0 Specification for its member companies, which is the first step in standardizing protocols. As of now, the potential is there for drivers to download a digital key that can lock and unlock the car, start it, and transfer the key to another operator in order to share the car. The CCC's aim is to save development costs, stave off a glut of similar-yet-competing technologies, and create keys that reflect the expanded use cases for cars, i.e., car-sharing services and to-your-car delivery. Next year's Release 2.0 Specification will standardize an authentication protocol between the phone and the vehicle — how a digital key is generated on a secure server and transmitted to the car and the device — and "promise more interoperability between cars and mobile devices." The CCC says that "NFC distance bounding and a direct link to the secure element of the device" will assure security. We take that to mean the phone will need to be in direct contact with the vehicle, at least to open the door. Carmakers and suppliers have been working on digital keys for years now, and the ecosystem for individual owners to open individual cars is growing. Audi showed off its Mobile Key at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show, and now calls it Audi Connect Key, but we haven't seen much of it in the field. That same year, Volvo said it expected to sell cars with digital keys only by 2017, which clearly didn't happen. Last year, the head of sales at BMW asked, "Honestly, how many people really need [keys]? They never take it out of their pocket, so why do I need to carry it around?" Even though a digital key offers an owner more convenience and long-distance control over their vehicle, car sharing is the target — and that can even include traditional rental cars. In 2013, Continental began testing a digital key in France, aimed at integrating and simplifying the electric-car-sharing business; everything from finding a free vehicle to driving it and charging it could be done on a phone. A key could be programmed with the driver's information, so that any car the driver gets in will be automatically updated with that driver's preferences, say for audio or seating position.