The future's here (From Basingstoke Gazette)

The future's here

3:28pm Friday 16th July 2010 in

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STEP inside the car of the future – it’s arrived!

I’m not talking hydrogen cells, battery power and joined-up convoys of vehicles linked by radar beams.

No, to someone who saw a cutaway of Concorde in the Eagle comic and the real flying supersonic prototype with less computer power than my mobile phone today, this is Dan Dare for real.

It’s a car where the satnav provides the best illumination for the road you’re on, selects the right gear for the corner ahead – just for starters.

We all remember – if not still experience – the age when the car had a steel cabin with seats, steering wheel, and pedals linked to an engine, clutch and brakes, a gear lever for transmission choice, mirrors to see what’s behind, headlights with main or dipped beam – oh, and a radio.

What do you use? It’s up to you – and did you opt for that heated rear screen as an optional extra?

Ok, we’ve moved on. Like Concorde the throttle is drive-by-wire electronic, rather than cable with a dodgy spring.

Brace yourself – well, actually the car will do that for you. Trans-mission is now quattro all-wheel drive with eight-speed Tiptronic ‘intelligent’ electronic sequential gearbox with double clutch that changes gear quicker than you can think about it, and when it needs to.

Quattro – that was the clue. Audi – the sign of the four linked rings; not Olympic but Herculean in achievement.

Audi has boomed while others fight bust, bravely launching supercars like the R8 but just as proud of the new A1 supermini, with a spectrum to meet every need – with panache – in between.

Superstars arrive at awards nights in the stretched A8, a perfect limousine. Business leaders are perfectly proud to show their success tastefully in the standard wheelbase version of the flagship.

They don’t mess about. It has to be right. On the button. So enter the new A8, distinguished by the latest Audi aluminium space frame body – tauter but now now weighing just 130kg.

Light weight means it handles like a sporting saloon, while cutting energy (and tax) bills with choice of 250PS 3.0 litre TDI turbo diesel at £54,385, 372PS 4.2 FSI petrol at around £62,000 and 350PS 4.2 TDI for about £2,000 more that cracks 0-62mph in 5.5sec.

And the high performer’s scoring highly against rivals like the Jaguar XJ, BMW 740 and Mercedes-Benz S Class.

Now get you head around this!

‘Thinking’ gearboxes have been around a while but on the new Audi A8 all the systems can be linked into one ‘intelligent’ car on which a WLAN hotspot for full Internet access is an option.

Satellite navigation just shows you where to go, right? Wrong, it also shows the car where you’re going – and for starters you can write in the postcode by hand (integrated handwriting character recognition) rather than fiddle with alphanumeric sequences that haven’t a clue.

Or the company chairman in the back seat can set the destination for the driver in front.

The satnav, available with Google Earth for satellite image instead of map from this autumn, has a predictive function linking route criteria with vehicle systems such as transmission choice and cruise control.

Linked to the satnav can be the xenon adaptive headlights with continuous range control by camera and dynamic cornering lights.

In town the satnav will activate the cornering lights to illuminate side roads at junctions or bends on twisting rural roads – as you approach.

There is Pre-Sense with four modes, with radar adaptive cruise control pacing you – automatically by throttle and brakes – from vehicles in front and monitoring vehicles behind and to the side for lane-changing.

Night vision will pick out a pedestrian outside the range of your lights.

Sound a bit upper-crust? Well this technology is due to cascade right down the range, even to the A1.

All-wheel drive is the big bonus, but with air suspension and double glazing for traffic hush it’s club class all the way.

Fabulous blends of wood or metal and hide trim out the sumptuous interior with space that made even Le Mans-winning Audi ace Allan McNish – pictured checking out the roominess – gasp: “If this is the standard wheelbase, what’s the stretched one going to be like?”

Behind the wheel he drove with verve, impressed by the handling and throttle response that belies the latest range’s lower emissions – both diesels under 200g/km, the 4.2 petrol under 220g/km.

And from the Le Mans-winning house of Audi the efficient engines gives up to 27 per cent better economy, with no less than 42.8mpg from the 3.0 TDI.

That’s some limo!