This article is from the public account of autocarweekly
Author: Wen Feng
As the year-end approaches, it is once again the time for major automakers to focus on “showing off their muscles.”
In the context of strict emission control and accelerated energy transformation, and under the “surprise attacks” of various cross-border heroes, the pace of major automakers in 2021 is surprisingly consistent, as if everyone has received the same “college entrance examination paper” and started to create a “essay question.”
This “essay question” cannot avoid these key words—autonomous driving, digitization, and new energy.
Compared with the “loud thunder and small rain” of the past “driving assistance functions,” intelligent driving that truly faces the future and is expected to liberate hands has already taken the fast lane. When car companies launch new cars, they are almost embarrassed to say hello to people without equipping them with several laser radars or stacking computing power to four-digit TOPS.
As intelligent driving technology continues to deepen, the cockpit will also transition from a space that meets travel needs to a space that meets multiple needs such as living and entertainment. How to do more interesting things in the car? Many car companies have started to plan and layout in advance, and offices, audio-visual rooms, mahjong tables, etc. have been invited to get onboard…
Of course, the most commendable thing this year is the sharp increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles. Walking on the streets of big cities, “green license plate cars” are becoming a mainstream choice. Taking Shanghai as an example, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has exceeded 30%, and even in non-restricted areas, new energy vehicle models are gradually being accepted by users.
In the first ten months of this year, the market share of new energy vehicles in China has exceeded 13%, and in recent months, it has even approached the goal of 20% penetration rate by 2025. The market share of new energy vehicles in Europe has exceeded 19%, and in some areas that are leading the way, such as Norway, new energy vehicles have almost completed the replacement of fuel vehicles.
Many people always like to talk about the “great changes that have not been seen in a century”, and this year, this sentence is indeed the most sincere feeling of everyone in the industry.
This also raises a slightly anxious question—just like the sudden change in the examination outline may make top students at a loss, will the technological and performance barriers established by traditional car brands, especially luxury brands, through long-term historical accumulation, be completely wiped out today?## “Leap into the Future with Technology” is more than just a slogan
Over 50 years ago, when cars were still in the stage of popular consumption around the world, “Vorsprung durch Technik” was defined as the Audi brand’s slogan. Its German original meaning is “to bring pleasure to people through technology.”
After entering the Chinese market, this slogan was translated as “Leap into the Future with Technology”. For the past 20 years, the Audi brand has always insisted on equipping its mass-produced models with configurations that were leading at that time and could bring the user a sense of pleasure, such as the interactive-leading MMI multimedia entertainment system and the ultimate handling representative Quattro four-wheel drive system.
However, in the current rapidly changing era, just keeping the lead of mass-produced cars seems to be a little insufficient for this slogan’s weight. Therefore, at the “Audi Future Ceremony” before the Guangzhou Auto Show, Audi has presented an admirable answer. Two Audi sphere concept cars, the Audi skysphere concept car and the Audi grandsphere concept car, have officially appeared in China.
The design inspiration of the Audi skysphere concept car comes from the legendary car Horch 853 in the 1930s. The open-top body structure, extremely long front end, and a length of up to 5.19 meters all create an extremely elegant GT sports car shape. The characteristics of a long wheelbase, short front overhang, and short rear overhang, which conform to the characteristics of a pure electric platform, are also in line with the layout ratio of the past.
This concept car will achieve level 4 autonomous driving, and it is worth mentioning that it provides two driving modes, Grand Touring and Sports.In Grand Touring mode, the Audi skysphere concept car will activate the automatic driving system, hide the steering wheel and pedals, and use variable wheelbase technology to extend the vehicle’s wheelbase by 25cm, lower the body height by 1cm, further reducing wind resistance and improving stability at high speeds.
In Sport mode, the car will shorten the wheelbase by 25cm, making the car 4.94 meters long. The display panels on the dashboard and center console will also move backward, along with the active rear wheel steering function, reducing the turning radius at low speeds and the steering angle of the car body during high-speed turns to provide users with a more enjoyable driving experience.
The Audi skysphere concept car well demonstrates the purpose of human participation in vehicle control when automated driving comes, which should focus on the fun of driving.
For this reason, it also has excellent driving performance to match such requirements. Its rear-drive motor with a maximum power of 465 kW and a peak torque of 750 Nm brings the model a 0-100 km/h acceleration score of 4 seconds, and the battery pack over 80 kWh ensures that the Audi skysphere concept car can achieve a maximum WLTP range of 500 km.
The design of the Audi grandsphere concept car embodies a deep understanding of future cabin space. This is a four-door GT model inspired by the Audi AVUS concept car of the 1990s. It is 5.35 meters long, 2 meters wide and 1.39 meters high, with a pillarless gullwing door design, creating a spacious cabin space.
# GrandSphere Concept Car from Audi
The Audi GrandSphere concept car also relies on Level 4 autonomous driving functions, with a focus on the cabin. Once the hands of the driver are completely liberated by automatic driving, the steering wheel and pedals will also be hidden, and the car will be upgraded to a “first-class cabin lounge”.
In the 2+2 layout cabin, the rear seats are set up as soft double seats with side-pullable backrests. The seat cushion and backrest of the front seats are separated from each other, and the seat itself integrates seat belts, providing passengers with a greater range of backrest angle adjustment functions.
When the backrest of the front seat is tilted 40 degrees, the passenger can easily use the information and entertainment system projected on the wooden platform in front of them. It supports multiple interaction modes such as eye tracking, gesture or voice control, handwriting input, and touch.
Tilting the backrest to 60 degrees can provide the most comfortable “reclining” posture. Meanwhile, the integrated headrest at the top of the backrest can tilt forward 15 degrees, and in this area, there are air outlets with filtering and temperature control functions and speakers for private voice communication. The car refrigerator is also designed in the front row, making it more convenient for passengers to access.
In addition, the overall interior of the Audi GrandSphere concept car adopts a more warm, simple and comfortable style, without using traditional leather materials, but using materials such as wood, wool, synthetic textile fabrics, and metal, which are comfortable to the touch and more environmentally friendly.
Matching the comfortable long-distance travel is excellent endurance and replenishment performance. This concept car is based on the PPE platform and has an electric drive system that uses an 800V high-voltage platform with a battery capacity of 120 kWh. It can achieve a WLTP driving range of over 750 km and can also be replenished with a 300 km driving range in 10 minutes through the 270 kW super-fast charging station. The battery can be charged from 5% to 80% in 25 minutes.## What makes the Audi sphere concept car stand out besides being “cool?”
If concept cars are like “out-of-syllabus answers” to customers, then the “knowledge points” that make up this “out-of-syllabus answer” are key to leading Audi’s successful transition towards new energy sources. At Audi’s Future Summit, Audi dissected these “gems” in detail.
Within the Volkswagen Group, Audi has the widest range of products, covering top-of-the-line high-performance products, mainstream luxury car models, and entry-level luxury products. Therefore, in terms of platform architecture, Audi is also the brand with the most comprehensive reserves, and will comprehensively deploy pure electric vehicles based on the MLB Evo, MEB, PPE, and J1 four major vehicle platforms.
These four major platforms have excellent complementarity. MEB has an advantage in production flexibility in the mainstream market, and the products it covers have a wider range. PPE and J1 use 800 V electrical systems. As is known, the 800 V electrical system effectively increases the power of charging and discharging without increasing the current size (an index directly related to harness weight), which means that the vehicle has better power performance and energy recovery efficiency. At the same time, Volkswagen has matched the 800 V electrical system with SiC power semiconductors, 350 kW ultra-fast charging networks, and a series of supporting technologies and facilities to fully unleash the maximum efficiency of the platform.
Thanks to the powerful economies of scale of the Volkswagen Group, these platforms have excellent technological foresight in the three-electric system.
In terms of batteries, the Audi brand is currently cooperating with LG to produce ternary lithium soft pack battery cells, and in the future, the Audi brand will use the group’s standardized size cells, which can achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement.
This standardized size cells are compatible with lithium iron phosphate, lithium manganese oxide, and high-nickel ternary lithium cathodes and can be freely switched according to the positioning of the vehicle model; in the future, they can seamlessly switch to solid-state battery technology. Moreover, when researching and developing new cars, changes in the internal composition of these standardized cells will not affect the layout of the entire vehicle, which can greatly shorten the development cycle of the entire vehicle and improve production flexibility for flexible response to the market.In terms of electric motors, the Audi brand self-develops induction asynchronous motors and permanent magnet synchronous motors and creatively adopts planetary gear reducers, which enable the coaxial arrangement of the motor rotor and motor output shaft and effectively reduce the space occupation compared with the parallel axis arrangement, providing more room for exploration for the overall spatial layout of the vehicle.
At the electronic control level, the power semiconductor inside the motor is equipped with an efficient double-sided electronic control water cooling system, which significantly improves the motor’s reliability, reduces motor energy consumption, and supports continuous intense driving behavior. The precise power semiconductor control ability can realize an intelligent and multi-level adjustable energy recovery system, better balancing comfort and endurance performance. Additionally, Audi’s new electronic control technology can enhance driving power by providing intelligent and innovative electronic devices that can pre-connect the motor.
As a brand with a strong reputation for driving fun, Audi’s choice in the context of electrification is not to weaken the driving experience but to use electrification technology to empower it and amplify the joy of driving.
First of all, Audi’s proud quattro all-wheel-drive system, with the support of electric power, can achieve infinitely free distribution of front and rear axle power, increasing response speed compared with traditional four-wheel drive by three times. In the future, Audi will also equip double-motor drive axles to better distribute power between left and right wheels, achieving better control performance than traditional mechanical torque distribution methods.
In order to compensate for the increased weight of the battery pack, provide agile driving experience, and improve endurance, Audi will also make extensive use of lightweight materials.
The Audi skysphere concept car is equipped with an aluminum front double-wishbone and rear multi-link suspension, which controls the overall weight of the vehicle at 1800 kg; The Audi grandsphere concept car’s 23-inch double-six-spoke wheels also have lightweight and high-strength features.
The characteristic of the high torque output of the electric motor puts higher requirements on platform gravity distribution and chassis tuning. The Audi skysphere concept car has 60% of its load applied to the rear axle where the driving motor is located, which effectively enhances the grip force on the wheels. The braking system adopts a wire-controlled braking method to maximize the recovery capacity and shorten the braking distance by 20%. It is paired with a three-chamber air suspension that can quickly adjust stiffness, effectively suppressing side tilt during cornering, and pitching during rapid acceleration and braking.
Audi has set lofty goals for electrification. By 2024, Audi will invest 37 billion Euros in areas such as research and development, fixed assets, and factory equipment. 15 billion Euros will be invested in electrification technology and about 10 billion Euros will be invested in the development of electric vehicle technology. By 2025, Audi will offer approximately 30 electric vehicle models, and from 2026 onwards, all new Audi models will be purely electric.
Furthermore, it can be confirmed that Audi’s pure electric vehicles in the future will still be easy to drive and even give people a stronger desire for driving.
Audi’s Layout for Intelligentization
New energy and intelligentization are often considered as parallel approaches, and when it comes to the pattern of intelligent driving and intelligent cabins, there is often a strong binding effect.
Today in 2021, the intelligent experience of many automakers has homogenized trend, with too many rapidly developed apps and too few practical applications. In my view, intelligent driving serves as the “key” to open the door to travel innovation, and only then can all subsequent intelligent applications embrace a new pattern.
With regard to intelligent driving, Audi is one of the few automakers in the industry to insist on a dual technology route driven by both single-vehicle intelligence and vehicle-road collaboration.
On the level of single-vehicle intelligence, Audi’s current intelligent driving system will adopt a “full-family” sensing solution consisting of ultrasonic radar, millimeter-wave radar, cameras, and lidars, which has excellent vehicle-periphery traffic perception capabilities. This is also the only luxury-brand automaker that is currently producing a “full-family” strategy in terms of perception solutions.
Compared with the “stubborn” approach of Musk who insists on using visual solutions, Audi had already installed a semi-solid-state lidar with a viewing angle of 145°, an average recognition distance of 80m, and horizontal resolution up to 0.25° on its flagship model A8 back in 2018, which is still not outdated today. It can be seen that Audi has a deep reserve of technology, and the technology route of lidar has also successfully attracted a group of followers in the industry.
At the same time, Audi also insists on V2X vehicle-to-everything collaborative technology, adopting the current international mainstream C-V2X solution. During the 2021 World Internet of Things Expo, Audi demonstrated for the first time in the world 13 different usage scenarios, including seeing vehicles beyond view, changing lanes automatically for emergency vehicles, dynamic V2I traffic signal lights, etc., merging V2X signals in L4 autonomous driving on public roads. The 5G communication chip and the scalability of V2X will be mass-produced in 2022.
As C-V2X is a technology solution proposed by China, and China has always maintained a large-scale investment in digital infrastructure construction, Audi believes that on the basis of integrating single-vehicle intelligence, the company will have a more advanced intelligent driving experience in the Chinese market.
So, what kind of innovation will happen to the interactive experience of vehicles after realizing the ultimate vision of autonomous driving? Audi has also done some exploration and demonstration.
First of all, in terms of lighting interaction, Audi still maintains its usual “sophistication”. The digitized matrix LED headlights and digital OLED taillights enable the vehicle to interact with traffic participants. When a driver gets in the Audi Grandsphere concept car, it will push a customized welcome light show.
When entering the car, when driving is no longer a burden, the importance of entertainment and communication functions can be highlighted. Audi will be equipped with high-bandwidth 5G communication, keeping the cabin and the outside world real-time interconnected. Watching live sports broadcasts and holding phone conferences can all be done in the car.
Just like configuring a personal desktop computer, a good in-car entertainment experience cannot do without strong hardware support. The MIB 3+ infotainment system reserved internally by Volkswagen Group has a tenfold increase in processing speed compared to MIB 2 processors and supports the Android platform software ecosystem, providing more possibilities for more complex in-car entertainment functions.
A vehicle machine system with open source capability will provide a stage for more third-party developers to perform, and Volkswagen Group’s huge volume is the core driving force for third-party enterprises to develop software.
Landing: What is Audi looking at in Guangzhou Motor Show
Having talked about the beautiful vision, let’s return to the present. What are the heavy-duty products of FAW-Volkswagen Audi worth focusing on during the Guangzhou Motor Show?
Firstly, it is the all-new Audi A8L Horch Founder’s Edition, which is the latest flagship sedan of the Audi family, and like its old rival Mercedes-Benz, the A8L Horch Founder’s Edition is also named after its founder.
The all-new A8L Horch Founder’s Edition is tailored for the high-end consumer group in China, with a length of up to 5450mm and a large amount of chrome material application, especially the 20-inch chrome wheels, which are its most recognizable features.The elongated 130mm body of the car is fully utilized for the legroom in the back seat. The 2+2 seat layout of the back seat can only be described as “luxurious” due to the overall space. The independent back seats provide a series of features, such as soft-filled headrests, foot bottom heating/massaging, and back massage. No high-end configuration that you can think of is omitted in its back seat.
Behind the luxury, what’s more worth attention is the understanding of the riding experience of the new A8L Horch founder’s edition. Its interaction is based on the new Audi connect platform MIB3+Asterix, providing the back seat with a dedicated intelligent touch and information entertainment system. And with the subsequent popularity of autonomous driving technology, such an experience also has a good chance of “transplanting” to the front row, forming a full range of comfortable enjoyment.
For the mainstream market, the first product of the FAW – Volkswagen Audi brand MEB platform vehicle – the Q4 e-tron is more noteworthy.
Compared with the same-level models of luxury brand rivals that are still in the process of switching from gasoline to electricity, this compact SUV is born from a purely electric platform architecture and has better performance competitiveness.
The Audi Q4-e tron is divided into two models: the standard version and the sportback version, with dimensions of 4590/1865/1613 mm, and a wheelbase of 2760 mm. Compared with gasoline models of the same size, it has a larger “wheelbase ratio,” making the interior space more comfortable overall. Thanks to the functions of the closed intake grille, the wind resistance coefficient of this SUV model is controlled at an excellent level of 0.28.
The new car’s power is divided into three different versions. The 35 e-tron uses a single permanent magnet synchronous motor, with a maximum output power of 170 horsepower and is equipped with a 52 kWh battery pack. The WLTP driving range is between 341-349 km. The 40 e-tron also uses a single permanent magnet synchronous motor, with a maximum output power of 204 horsepower and is equipped with a 77 kWh battery pack. The WLTP driving range reaches 520 km.
The most powerful 50 e-tron quattro four-wheel-drive version has a maximum output power of 299 horsepower, torque of 460 Nm, and a 0-100km/h acceleration time of 6.2 seconds. The same 77 kWh motor gives it a WLTP driving range of 488km.
In terms of interaction, the Q4 e-tron continues its high standards. The new car’s cockpit adopts a three-zone layout – Audi Virtual Cockpit, central MMI touch screen, and a new enhanced reality heads-up display (AR-HUD) – while also supporting powerful localized voice interaction.Despite the impact of chip shortage, Audi’s cumulative sales in China from January to October this year reached 538,000 units, a sharp increase of 14.4% year-on-year. With the gradual easing of chip shortage and the introduction of strong pure electric products in the context of consumption upgrading, it is believed that the Audi brand will usher in more remarkable growth.
More importantly, Audi’s forward-looking vision, determination, and steadfastness can be seen from its long-term product planning and technological reserves. The outstanding scale effect of Volkswagen Group and Audi’s strong engineering capability will accelerate Audi’s ambition to land, and in the next 4-5 years, we will witness more moments when Audi “breaks through technology and enlightens the future”.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.