Audi is at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show showing off its AI:ME fully-automated concept car. It’s a vision for an urban vehicle with a silhouette not dissimilar to the ground-breaking A2 of 20 years ago.
Described as a ‘third living space’ to go alongside the home and workplace, the AI:ME is designed to know its driver, using eye-tracking to enable tasks like ordering food.
Occupants can put on a pair of VR goggles for a wellness experience, taking them to fantastical places, like a flight over a mountain range. The simulation reacts to how the car is moving in real time, so the experience is fully integrated.
Audi AI:ME – the empathetic car
Clever though it was, we don’t remember the A2 coming with anything like the ‘Audi Intelligence Experience’. This is how the car learns about its user, their destinations, their habits and their preferences. It can monitor driving style and even vital bodily functions.
Over time, the car will be able to learn your preferred seat position, cabin climate and even which air freshener scent you prefer.
Audi has also developed what it calls ‘Human-Centric Lighting’, which changes based on how you feel. Tired drivers can be soothed with blue cool white light, which stimulates and invigorates.
Augmented reality displays
The AI:ME features new screen technology, with transparent displays. A 15cm by 122cm transparent section is partially embedded into the instrument panel. It’s double-layered, with an OLED display and a black panel. The parts of the screen that aren’t being used to show information remain see-through, for an unobstructed view of the road.
Audi calls the AI:ME a ‘vision vehicle’, suggesting this reborn A2 isn’t something we can expect in 2021 or even 2022. It’s nice to see the marque re-visiting the footprint of one of its cleverest models, though.
