2000 Audi A6 Quattro Base Sedan 4-door 2.7l on 2040-cars

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Audi passes BMW as top luxury brand in India

By the end of this decade, India is expected to be one of the top three car markets in the world, but automakers are already starting to duke it out for sales. In terms of premium brands, Automotive News says that Audi has jumped out to an early lead for sales in the country due in large part to the recent introduction of the Audi Q3 (shown above).
In 2012, Audi's sales increased 43 percent, rising to 9,350 units and outselling BMW (8,686) and Mercedes-Benz (7,015), both of which experienced a drop in sales last year of 9.5 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively. While none of these sales figures are particularly significant on a global scale, the article says that the market for premium cars in India is expected to quadruple by 2020 up to around 120,000 units. AN attributes Audi's lead to its offering of new SUVs while its rivals have been focusing on small hatchbacks.

Stanford goes from Pikes Peak to Thunderhill with autonomous Audi TTS

In the years since Stanford University engineers successfully programmed an Audi TTS to autonomously ascend Pikes Peak, the technology behind driverless cars has progressed leaps and bounds. Back then the Audi needed 27 minutes to make it up the 12.42-mile course – about 10 minutes slower than a human driver. These days, further improvements allow the vehicle to lap a track faster than a human. The researchers recently took their autonomous TTS named Shelley to the undulating Thunderhill Raceway Park, and let it go on track without anyone inside. The Audi reportedly hit over 120 miles per hour, and according to The Telegraph, the circuit's CEO, who's also an amateur racing driver, took some laps as well and was 0.4 seconds slower than the computer. To make these massive technological advancements, the Stanford engineers have been studying how racers handle a car. They also hooked up drivers' brains to electrodes and found the mind wasn't doing as much cognitively as expected. It instead operated largely on muscle memory. "So by looking at race car drivers we are actually looking at the same mathematical problem that we use for safety on the highways. We've got the point of being fairly comparable to an expert driver in terms of our ability to drive around the track," Professor Chris Gerdes, director of Stanford's Revs Program, said to The Telegraph. With progress coming so rapidly, it seems possible for autonomous racecars to best even elite drivers at some point in the near future. Related Video:

Alpha 10 Audi R8 by AMS Beauty-Roll

For those of you paying attention, we've really ramped up the old Autoblog video game these days. Our new series Car Club USA joins Translogic and The List, and there are more Daily Drivers and Short Cuts than ever. But sometimes, all you care about is the car. The Autoblog Beauty-Roll video series has one goal: bring you glossy video images of cars, and nothing but. We're collecting moving pictures of all the cars we test, inside and out. Each episode comes with a hit of engine sound – start-up and with a few revs – to round out the package. Set your resolution to max, kick it into full-screen, turn up the sound, and enjoy today's subject, the Alpha 10 Audi R8 by AMS. Oh, and if you'd like more Beauty-Roll, click here to see the back catalog.