2001 Audi A8 Quattro L Sedan 4-door 4.2l 128k Service Records on 2040-cars

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Watch Stanford's self-driving Audi hit the track

Sending a self-driving race car around a track with nobody inside seems pointless – there's no driver to enjoy the ride, and the car certainly isn't getting a thrill out of it. But the students performing research with Stanford University's Audi TTS test rig "Shelley" (not to be confused with Audi's own self-driving race cars) are getting a kick out of the numbers generated by the machine. "A race car driver can use all of a car's functionality to drive fast," says Stanford Professor Chris Gerdes. "We want to access that same functionality to make driving safer." The teams push the car to speeds over 120mph and the computers have executed lap times nearly as fast as professional drivers. However, they also spend a lot of time maneuvering at 50 to 75 mph, the speeds where accidents are most likely to happen. That way, the students can figure out how to incorporate braking, throttle and maneuvering to develop new types of automatic collision avoidance algorithms. Better technology, for instance, could have saved Google from a recent slow-speed accident where its vehicle was struck by a bus. During race days, students break into teams to perform different types of research. "Once you get to the track, things can go differently than you expect. So it's an excellent lesson of advanced planning," says Gerdes. In the latest rounds of testing, for instance, one PhD student developed emergency lane-change algorithms, while another recorded a skilled human driver in an attempt to convert his behavior into a driving algorithm. The main goal, of course, is to prepare students for something they may not have expected -- an automotive industry that is adopting self-driving technology at breakneck speeds. This article by Steve Dent originally ran on Engadget, the definitive guide to this connected life. Green Audi Technology Coupe Autonomous Vehicles Racing Vehicles Performance Videos racecar research

2014 Audi RS7 [w/video]

The subject of what makes up a true "supercar" is a difficult one, fraught with personal connotations and the rare ability to bring close colleagues into heated confrontation with one another in the blink of an eye. I say this because, while the 2014 Audi RS7 most certainly does not make the supercar cut on a few levels to my way of thinking - not rare enough, expensive enough or wearing an appropriately evocative body - it is unquestionably an "everyday supercar" of remarkable ability. And, pertinently, it is one that proved willing to ply its trade in every version of winter that Michigan had to offer it.
I had winter four ways during my week-long loan with the RS7. A period of crisp temperatures and dry roads, presided over by light blue skies as wide as the horizon, soon gave way to spitting, freezing rain blanketed in slightly misleading warmer air. Then there was snow. Not the massive blanket we saw in the first week of the New Year, but more than enough to see my neighbors stocking up on Ice Melt and replacing their shovels for the season. Finally, temperatures dropped to the mid teens, cottony snow compressed into a hard pack and all residual moisture on the mostly cleared roads morphed into the very slickest of ice. Timeless curses were uttered by cranky commuters in smoking breaths. Pure Michigan.

Audi readying diesel PHEV models for US and Europe

With the racing pedigree provided by the Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the German king of Le Mans is capitalizing on the connection between its road cars and race cars at every opportunity. Maybe there's an entire range of Le Mans Editions for the automakers diesel-hybrid offerings, with perhaps Tom Kristensen acting as the brand's spokesperson for the technology in Europe. You'd be wrong, though, because despite the R18's overwhelming successes in endurance racing, Audi the road-car manufacturer doesn't offer a single diesel-hybrid production car.
This factoid will hopefully be as short lived as it is disappointing, though, as a diesel-electric is around the corner, according to the brand's tech boss, Ulrich Hackenberg. In fact, it gets better than a mere diesel-hybrid; it will be a plug-in diesel-hybrid, only the second to hit the market, alongside the European-market Volvo V60.
According to Hackenberg, the new tech will be the result of a marriage between the brand's well-received 3.0-liter, TDI V6 with an electric motor. The next-generation Audi Q7 (shown above) will be the initial recipient, confirming previous reports that claimed a PHEV TDI could come to the next-gen CUV. Its MLB architecture, meanwhile, would allow the plug-in-hybrid-diesel powertrain to be fitted easily enough to the A8 luxury sedan. While the new Q7 should hit the market at some point in 2015, it's unclear when the PHEV TDI model could see the light of day.