They All Talk About It, But Which Automaker REALLY Holds The Edge In Electronic Sophistication?

Audi is undeniably at the cutting edge of electronic sophistication. From its Virtual Cockpit display to its leadership in autonomous driving, the brand from Ingolstadt continues to be at the forefront of innovation.

Agreed. The virtual cockpit is awesome and I hear the new A8 is going to be a real technological tour de force.

Not sure I'd agree with that completely. In all technicality, a lot of what the virtual cockpit displays is available on other brand's cars' systems. It's just how it's being displayed that separates Audi. Whether that separates them in a good way or a bad way is subjective. As many people as like the new display, there are others who don't and prefer to have it separated to a separate display.

Let's see Audi is a least a generation behind in hybrid technology (just using VW's), way behind in electric car technology, just debut a hydrogen car, which BMW has been working on for over a decade, Audi has to use VW cheating diesel tech to stay competitive, but they do have a cool instrument cluster. They however are a leader in vaporware.

Yeah sure they're a tech leader.

Better questions:
(1) Who has the lead in electronic reliability?
(2) Who has the lead in user interface (UI) usability and intuitive design?

Although some have credited Audi with being on the cutting edge, and using their MMI (Man/Machine interface) as an example, I own a 2015 model, and the UI is rubbish. With annoyances like having to take 12 steps to execute an operation that should take at most 2-3, to 1990s-like thinking that requires you to create a voiceprint for phone directory entries (50 max) and to initiate a phone call using an exact multi-sentence exchange (instead of a simple and intuitive "Call Dave Smith", like on an iPhone), the best thing I can say about Audi's MMI is that at least it's not buggy.

Odd. I never had a problem with my 2012 S5. I simply said, "Call Mom", and it would call mom. My current car is actually nowhere near as easy as that (annoyingly)

Something tells me you are using your system wrong in your Q5. As long as you have "Dave Smith" programmed in your cell phone, you press and release your voice control button, hear the tone, and say "Call Dave Smith", the call will go out after confirmation.

You might need a Second Delivery to explain the features of your Q5.

there is nothing that takes more then 3 steps and anything that takes 3 steps is a setup so i call bs

For you learned folks (that’s sarcasm, BTW) who believe you know so much about Audi products that you conclude I must certainly not know mine well enough to use it like you do, be advised that Audi creates *multiple* MMI systems with different feature sets, though they do not advertise this. In my case, with the 2015 Q5, when you don’t buy the optional Navigation Package (I didn’t), you receive an MMI that is a lesser system in several respects. One of them is the way it handles voice recognition to initiate a telephone call. According to the user manual, and confirmed by my use, before you can place a call to a person in your directory using voice recognition, you must:
(1) Create a directory entry in the MMI (limit of 50 entries). You enter a name and a phone number. This does not access your smartphone directory.
(2) Record a unique voice print for that directory entry.

After you’ve successfully created a directory entry with a voiceprint in your MMI, you initiate a call using voice recognition EXACTLY and ONLY as follows:
(1) Driver: Press the TEL button on the steering wheel and wait for the beep
(2) Driver Says: “Select Name”
(3) MMI: “The Name Please”
(4) Driver Says: “John Smith”
(5) MMI plays the recorded voice print: “John Smith”
(6) Driver Says: “Dial”
(7) MMI: “Dialing”

In contrast, if you have an iPhone, you can simply do the following without needing to create voiceprints, or being limited to 50 directory entries:
(1) Driver: Press and hold the Home button and wait for the dual tones from Siri
(2) Driver Says: “Call John Smith”
(3) iPhone: “Calling John Smith”


IamEvilHomer: who alleges “there is nothing that takes more then [sic] 3 steps and anything that takes 3 steps is a setup so i call bs”

Scenario: You’re listening to your iPod, and you want to turn down the bass.
(0) If the Media button is not already selected, press the Media button (light goes on to confirm it’s selected)
(1) Look at the display to determine the available options. (Sound is the correct one)
(2) Look to your console to locate the physical key that represents Sound (bottom right)*
(3) Press the bottom right key
(4) Look at the display to determine the available options
(5) Grasp the MMI control knob and turn counter-clockwise while watching your screen, and then stop when the selector highlights Bass
(6) Press the MMI control knob to enter Bass mode
(7) Turn the MMI control knob counter-clockwise to decrease the bass as desired
(8) Press the MMI control knob to save the current bass setting, and to exit this screen and return to the previous one
(9) Press the Return button (below the MMI control knob) to exit the current screen and return to your music information screen

*People typically don’t even realize they have to scan their dash to locate some controls that aren’t at their fingertips, like a signal stalk or cruise control stalk.

Perhaps you consider this a 1-time setup thing, because nobody ever changes tone in

(continued from above)

...their car audio system after they’ve done it once, right? (sarcasm again)

The Vendor's the buy the technology from.