How Audi will transform the A8 in 2024
Audi wants to reinvent some of its core cars for the future. A number of concepts will debut in the coming years to show how models like the A8 will change with the times. The A8 (or equivalent) when it arrives in 2024 will ride on the wider Volkswagen Group’s ‘Artemis’ next-generation all-electric architecture. It will be previewed by the Grandsphere Concept – as teased here – that's due to be unveiled in full before the end of 2021.
The next A8 won’t be beholden to the absolute hard points of the ICE cars that preceded it. A big, bulbous area no longer needs to be available for an engine or fuel storage. Instead, motors sit on the axles, with batteries low down in the floor.
Likewise, cabin dimensions will grow to take advantage of new spatial freedoms. Occupant space will have to be more versatile than ever before, as the job of driving is handed over.
“What demands are users making of us?” Audi Design head Marc Lichte asks. “Do they want to be able to work in the car, read, or sleep? What purpose are we designing the car for? Long distances? Cities? Leisure? What does the appropriate interior need to look like for that? Right now is the best time to rethink and reconfigure automobile design – to put it briefly: to lead car design into the future.”
So how does Audi approach the design of the cars of the future, as cars themselves go through unprecedented changes? High-tech cars require high-tech tools with which to design them, while cars that serve wider purposes than ever before require a broader approach than ever. The MacGuffin of this step-change? High-quality 3D virtual reality tech. It effectively allows designers to effectively be in and around a car that doesn’t even exist yet.
3D visualisation and VR tech will mean that Audi designers no longer need to congregate around sketches or a clay model but can instead collaborate from anywhere in the world. The digital medium and in-person experience can be accessed from anywhere.
It’s not the kind of VR tech you know of, either. It’s more advanced, more expensive, more robust, with more computing power, allowing everything from the broad strokes to the intricate details to be experienced. From exterior dimensions and touches, to how a cabin looks around you, this tech, Audi says, is fast-forwarding the rigmarole of design. Crucial, in such a pivotal moment of change for cars.
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