Audi offers autonomous driving experiences on Germany's A9 motorway

Taking a quick look at the future that is coming in the automotive world is easier for Audi customers thanks to the driving experience that the brand with the four rings offers on the A9 motorway in its A7 Piloted Driving demonstration car driven on the A9 motorway.

Over the next six weeks, with Munich airport as the starting and finishing point, Audi will provide piloted driving experiences that give a glimpse of the future of mobility. Brand customers who request it will be able to take the wheel of A7 Piloted Driving units and drive a 45-kilometre route with a brand monitor at their side explaining how the on-board systems that advance autonomous driving in the A7 work.

In normal traffic conditions, this driving experience lasts approximately one hour, during which users can travel at speeds of up to 130 km/h with the car driving autonomously, accelerating, braking and changing lanes by itself, smoothly and in a controlled manner, while the A7 Piloted Driving cooperates with other road users to facilitate mobility and traffic flow.

The experience takes place on a stretch of motorway completely open to traffic and under real driving conditions, which makes it possible to verify at all times the correct functioning of the autonomous driving technologies fitted by Audi to the A7 Piloted Driving.

The opportunity to accompany Jack will be available until the end of August at Munich airport over a 45-kilometre stretch. After the test, Audi technicians will ask the occasional drivers of “Jack” — the name by which they refer to the A7 Piloted Driving — for their opinion on the experience enjoyed, in order to incorporate their impressions into the development of future autonomous driving functions.

On the Audi Germany website you can apply to take part in this experience. Frequent flyers who are members of the “Miles and More” programme and pass through Munich airport until the end of August can also exchange their accumulated miles for a ride aboard Jack.

The most outstanding feature of the A7 Piloted Driving is the central driver-assistance controller, the new zFAS electronic platform from Audi, which uses the signals captured by all of the car’s sensors to continuously generate a detailed image of its surroundings. After its development on the basis of the Audi A7 Piloted Driving, the zFAS — roughly the size of a laptop — was installed for the first time in a series-production vehicle in the new Audi A8, presented last week at the Audi Summit the brand held in Barcelona to showcase all its advances in autonomous driving.

The new Audi A8 also features the innovative and advanced traffic jam assistant, which lets the driver hand over control to the vehicle on motorway stretches with slow-moving traffic at speeds of up to 60 km/h, which places the A8 squarely at Level 3 of autonomous driving.