Audi 2012 Annual Report Download - page 156

159
Management Report
140 Audi Group
151 Business and underlying
situation
151 Economic environment
153 Research and development
162 Procurement
162 Production
165 Deliveries and distribution
173 Financial performance
indicators
176 Social and ecological aspects
190 Risks, opportunities
and outlook
201 Disclaimer
component is Audi connect or the Bluetooth car phone online, available as an equipment option
to complement the option of MMI Navigation plus. It establishes an Internet connection via a
UMTS module. The integral WiFi hotspot allows passengers to surf and e-mail at will from up to
eight mobile terminal devices. Audi connect also provides Internet services customized to the
driver’s needs, ranging from navigation by the Google Earth™ mapping service and map zoom
down to 30 meters to a 360° panoramic view with Google Street View™ and the web radio func-
tion Audi music stream. There is also the attractive service of traffic information online. This
uses the movement profiles of hundreds of thousands of smartphones and navigation units
that are on board moving vehicles. In an anonymized, centrally processed form, it provides an
up-to-the-minute picture of the traffic situation everywhere from country roads to city streets.
Drivers of the new Audi A3 can make destination inputs through an active myAudi account linked
to the vehicle, which the customer can create online at the myAudi portal, access Google Maps™,
the point-of-interest (POI) search feature with voice control, call up weather and travel informa-
tion, and benefit from other new Audi connect services, too. Our customers can now tailor a
number of functions to their individual preferences on the myAudi portal. With the online news
service (individual), for example, a customer’s preferred news sources (RSS feeds) can be confi-
gured and saved via the myAudi account online. The user’s personal news bulletins are then
available in the vehicle. The text-to-speech function is an especially convenient feature that is
also available for a number of other Audi connect services.
For the online community, Audi connect also integrates Facebook and Twitter into the vehicle’s
infotainment systems. The new Audi A3 now includes a text function for these services. In con-
junction with data such as the current location, the user can, for example, choose to send a
preconfigured online message through social networks to let their friends know their where-
abouts. The new Audi A3 also incorporates services such as the City Events function, an Internet-
based event guide listing, among other things, music, theater and arts events happening locally.
Picturebook Navigation also allows personal photos linked to geolocation data (GPS) to be used
for navigation. The messages service, which includes a dictation and voice-activated send func-
tion, and an e-mail function complete the extensive range of Audi connect features in the new A3.
Our Audi A3 customers can also benefit from the new Audi MMI connect app, which provides direct
access to certain Audi connect services via smartphones. For instance, navigation destinations
and photos can be sent directly from the smartphone to the vehicle.
It will become increasingly important to integrate information technologies into vehicles swiftly
and comprehensively. Audi is the very first premium manufacturer to become involved in the IT
industry as more than just a client; it has participated in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in
Las Vegas and the CeBIT in Hanover as an exhibitor in its own right.
With the new mobile phone standard Long Term Evolution (LTE), which permits data transfer
speeds of up to 100 Mbit per second, cars will in future be able to communicate even faster with
each other and with the transport infrastructure.