At this year’s Geneva Motor Show, Audi came up with another pleasant surprise; The Audi R8 E-tron self-driving electric car! The car has the best range and speed in the collection of electric cars and comparable only to the elusive Tesla Model S. It is an electric self-driving car with 456 horsepowers and lasts a lot. What more could you want?
However, the auto giant doesn’t appear to have tested the driverless version to the extent that it will be able to roam around freely. Autonomous cars are still under development by technological giants like Google. So, it was expected that this R8 would have a semi-autonomous status and labelled driverless to get the extra flash at the famous auto show. They won’t be the first anyway considering the kind of stuff they put up on display over there. There was plenty of other cool tech on display in the car too with the battery timing being the best part.
The car boasts a 92 KWh T-shaped Lithium-ion battery, providing 450 kilometres of range. So, for the first time, a car seems to be giving some real distance entirely on batteries. The 456 horsepower engine has enough thrust to go from 0 to 100 km in 3.9 seconds. The body of the car is made of a new multi-material space frame that ensures streamlined appearance.
The recently developed Laser scanners, ultrasonic sensors and the radar sensors are used to send data to the central driver assistance unit. This central computer then maps and understands the surrounding area of the car to start an autonomous movement. Not much is known about this new dimension to the Audi car, so we will have to wait and see how far they have gone to provide a smooth self-driven experience.
There have been no test drives of Audi R8s announced by the company as of yet, but just like it did with A7 Sportback, something similar might be in the offing shortly. Would you buy one for yourself? Let us know in the comments section