Audi 2014 Annual Report Download - page 19

Here at Audi, we call it the th hour in the day. WEINBERG :
Time is a precious commodity. Digitization has created a para-
doxical situation here. Things that used to take days now take
seconds. But we also feel we have even less time because
ev erything is getting more compressed. So time will become
in creasingly important, especially for premium customers.
And it’s not just a simple matter of saving time, it’s about the
quality of your time experience. People want to regain control
of their time.
Where is this th hour going to come from ? Everyone
knows there are only  hours in a day.
STADLER : Let’s take the example of piloted driving again.
In Los Angeles, commuters trying to get between Redondo
Beach and Hollywood spend about an hour and a half in tra c
jams every morning and evening. If you are in a piloted car,
you could use that time to dictate text messages, catch up with
the family on the phone or skype. WEINBERG : I have a daily
commute of one hour by car, including tra c jams. I tolerate it
because the personal sanctuary that you mentioned earlier is
hugely important to me. That’s why I won’t take the train instead.
If I could use the time I spend in the car more e ectively for
working, that would really enhance my quality of life.
STADLER : And that’s precisely why we are working on an array
of technologies that create time. The tra c light info online
service can help reduce urban congestion in the future. This
system communicates with the tra c control center to
calculate your ideal speed for reaching every tra c signal on
green. As well as saving time, piloted parking uses parking
space in cities more e ectively because parking ga rages could
hold twice as many cars as they do now in the future.
With time and space at a premium in cities such as Berlin,
many young people choose to live without a car. Shouldn’t
Audi be doing much more to promote car sharing ?
STADLER : We di erentiate between cultural contexts when
analyzing trends. What’s right for Berlin is by no means neces-
sarily right for Seoul. We are building a bridge between our
customers’ premium expectations and the community spirit.
Through the pilot project Audi unite, for example, four archi-
tects who are all friends could share an Audi RS  Avant.
China is already trying to ban cars from cities …
STADLER : … to the detriment of individual mobility. Bans
are not a constructive solution. Through the Audi Urban Future
Initiative, we have been working with mobility experts for
many years to analyze the situation in major cities around the
world. Obviously congestion and a shortage of parking spaces
impinge on the freedom that the car originally embodied. We
are teaming up with municipal authorities to give people back
that freedom. We will already have achieved a great deal once
cars can communicate with each other, with tra c signals and
with parking garages.
“We di erentiate between
“We di erentiate between
cultural contexts when
cultural contexts when
analyzing trends. What’s
analyzing trends. What’s
right for Berlin is by
right for Berlin is by
no means necessarily
right for Seoul.”
right for Seoul.”
PHOTOS : Klaus Mellenthin ILLUSTRATION : HPI School of Design Thinking
Rupert Stadler
Fuel consumption and emission figures at the end of the Annual Report