Skip to main content

The A8 Sees Bumps Before it Hits Them

“I’m not drunk, I’m just avoiding potholes,” is the bumper sticker that adorns the rear of many a lowered car. Scanning the road for bumps need no longer concern the owners of Audi’s upcoming A8.

Tied to the car’s 48-volt “mild-hybrid” electrical system, the A8’s suspension will predict bumps to level them out.

“Predict,” might be a little overblown, but it will actually see them and react to them before they even arrive, by using its front-mounted cameras to look down the road.

Scanning the street 18 times a second, the A8 looks for bumps and prepares the right amount of suspension travel through its active actuators.

Effectively, the car sees a bumps, softens the suspension as it’s hitting it, and lets little to none of the jolt into the cabin.

A side benefit of the A8’s Electronic Chassis Platform (ECP) is that it allows the car to be taut and stiff when that’s what you want. So, if you’re driving enthusiastically, the car stays level and stiff, but on your commute home, the A8 is soft and pampering.

Even better, if you’re driving enthusiastically and hit a bump, the A8 has already seen it, so it doesn’t get unsettled. In combination with rear-wheel steering (which gives it a smaller turning circle than the A4), Audi argues that the new A8 will be eminently chuckable without giving up the luxurious comfort of a limousine.

The final trick up Audi’s sleeve, though, is that, for the first time ever, the ECP is also used to help protect occupants during an accident.

By raising the body by up to 3 inches when an accident is detected, the A8 moves the force of an impact down to the stronger parts of the car. Instead of hitting the windows, for example, the impact would hit the window sill, lowering the load on occupants by up to 50%.

The A8 will be presented to the public on July 11 in Barcelona, but will first be seen in “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” premiering on June 28.

The post The A8 Sees Bumps Before it Hits Them appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2sZSOut
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Waterfest Moves to Atco Dragway

Waterfest 24 will be held at Atco Dragway, in Atco, New Jersey. The summer event will take place at its new venue on July 21 and 22. Long held in Englishtown, New Jersey, the festival has been such a large part of the VW scene that the latest iteration of the Golf even comes with optional “Englishtown” wheels . The new venue, however, is an NHRA drag track a scant 52 miles southwest of Englishtown. The ¼ mile drag track opened in 1960, which makes it the oldest drag strip in New Jersey. The announcement came today on a social media post that announced the new location. Waterfest is North America’s largest VW/Audi show. As many 20,000 people show up for the annual show, making the second largest show in the world—with Worthersee being number one. 2018 will be Waterfest’s 24 th year in existence. The post Waterfest Moves to Atco Dragway appeared first on VWVortex . from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2GQjkuc via IFTTT
Post a Comment
Read more

Macau Gets Messy with 16-Car Pileup

The Macau Grand Prix is always good for an accident or two or 16— you may remember Audi’s race ending crash last year —and this year’s event didn’t disappoint. It didn’t take long for things to get messy on the tight road circuit. On the opening lap of the qualifying race a 16-car pileup caused the race to be suspended. Things kicked off when Daniel Juncadella hit a wall on the exit of Police bend, one of the tightest parts of the already tight circuit. The following car of Raffaele Marciello was able to avoid the carnage, but Laurens Vanthoor, who was in the upside-down Audi that ended the race last year, could not avoid Juncadella and together they blocked up the road pretty much completely. “I couldn’t see him [Juncadella] at first. Then I saw the car standing still,” Vanthoor told Motorsport. “I tried to brake but it was just understeering and I couldn’t do anything. There’s room for one car there and you’re blind.” Fourteen more cars would eventually crash into the corner c
Post a Comment
Read more

The First of its Kind: Integrated Engineering Releases Highly-Anticipated IE450T MK6 Golf R Turbo Kit

After two long years of development, the team at Integrated Engineering has finally announced the release of their IE450T kit for the MK6 Golf R. With their turbo kit bolted on right out of the box, the sport AWD hatch is transformed into a 450bhp monster, with hardly any noticeable increase in spool time. In fact, 435 ft-lbs of torque are achieved at all four wheels, at a mere 3300rpm! By now you are probably asking yourself how this is even possible on a 2.0L engine that made nearly half that power from the factory. By employing true twin-scroll technology into the cast turbo manifold and pairing it with a state-of-the-art BorgWarner EFR turbocharger, IE was able to keep spool time at a minimum and bring the fastest-spooling big turbo setup to the market. “We wanted to offer a kit that would dramatically increase the power output without making the car lose its amazing street-friendly drivability,” mentioned one of the IE engineers. We are told the IE450T leaves the car driving jus
Post a Comment
Read more