Audi 2012 Annual Report Download - page 64

of the British capital is just 16 kilo-
meters per hour. That is roughly as fast
as with a horse-drawn carriage 100
years ago.
Urban planning and architecture
expert Wigley therefore considers the
most important task to be to define
a common thread for the road to the
future. On what logical basis should
the cities of tomorrow be organized?
How might functioning mobility look?
What benefits can be derived from
new networking possibilities, and how
might the relationship between
“owning” and “using” change? What
role can the automobile play here, and
how might it be intelligently embedded
into its environment?
Professor Wigley has a surprising
answer. “I have the feeling that rather
than becoming less important, the
automobile will play an even more
im portant role.” However, the new
functions and uses of the automobile
have not yet been defined. “Cities
will become denser. And greater
density also means a greater need
for mobility,” he says. “The car of
the future might simply be a living
space that moves. Perhaps in the
future, cars and buildings will not only
communicate with one another, but
even switch roles.”
Rupert Stadler has very concrete
ideas about the first steps here. For
him the keyword is “piloted driving,”
and Audi is in pole position with the
development of this technology. Test
vehicles with innovative trac jam
assistants enabling the cars to drive
fully automatically at speeds up to 60
kilometers per hour are already using
public roads in Nevada, for example.
“I also like to talk about ‘computing
while commuting’,” adds the Audi CEO.
“This means making ecient use of
your time in a completely connected car
that drives itself, i.e. writing e-mails,
scheduling appointments or making
conference calls.” The assistance systems
of tomorrow not only support the driver
in key ways, they also enhance safety.
The car of tomorrow can also find its
own parking space – the driver just
has to leave it at the entrance to the
parking garage. Garage Parking Pilot
is what Audi calls this new technology
currently undergoing testing. “This
enables us to give a little quality of life
back to our customers,” says Stadler.
But the horizon extends far beyond
that. To firm up ideas for the more
distant future of mobility in metropoli-
tan areas, the brand with the four rings
last year tendered the second Audi
Professor Mark Wigley
The native of New Zealand is an architect, author and one of
the pioneers of deconstructivism. Wigley has taught at
Columbia University since 2004. He has overall responsibility
for the Experiments in Motion project, which is part of
the Audi Urban Future Initiative.
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