Is there a limit to how low in the Audi range the automaker’s high-powered all-digital instrument cluster can go? It seems not, as next year, the customizable screen will end up in the face-lifted version of the A3 sedan and hatch, Hudi told us. “In the future, there are not so many [of our] cars that will not have it integrated, even into the smaller cars. Next year in the A3, we will also integrate the Virtual Cockpit,” he confirmed.
A claimed auto-industry record of more than a teraFLOP of computing power will be stuffed inside Audi’s next A8, we’ve been told. With Audi spending four times as much on developing in-car electronics as it did just five years ago, everything it knows will be brought to bear on the next-generation A8, due in 2017.
According to Hudi, booming demand for gadgetry and new systems has put unprecedented strains on his department. “It is a significant double-digit percentage of Audi’s total research and development spend today,” he said. “There will be more than a teraflop of computing power in the A8. It will need it, and it’s affordable.” A large slice of that computing power will be soaked up by the adoption of touch screens for both the multimedia and ventilation systems, plus the next iteration of the Virtual Cockpit.
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