Audi has unveiled a new version of its R8 e-tron electric supercar concept at CES Asia Monday — it’s still an extremely powerful, high-tech electric vehicle, but now it can also drive itself.
The Audi R8 e-tron piloted driving concept, as it’s called, has two electric motors, each with a 170kW power output delivering a total of 456 horsepower and jolting the car from 0 – 100 km/h (0 – 62.1 mph) in 3.9 seconds.
IMAGE: AUDI
The car’s top speed is capped at 210 km/h (120.5 mph) or 250 km/h (155.3 mph) depending on the tires. Its range is 450 kilometers (279.6 miles), and the charging time is less than two hours thanks to Audi’s Combined Charging System (CCS), which allows charging with both direct and alternating current.
As far as chassis goes, it includes all kinds of exotic materials, including carbon fiber reinforced polymer, all of which keep the car light but very secure in case of crash.
Most of these specs aren’t new (the car debuted at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show in March), but the latest concept includes Audi’s Piloted Driving technology. It acquires data from a multitude of sensors, including radar, ultrasonic and laser sensors as well as several video cameras, which is then handed over to Audi’s zFAS central driver assistance control unit.
IMAGE: AUDI
In short, if you bought this car, you’d get a performance beast which you don’t have to drive yourself — an odd proposition for most enthusiasts but hey, if that’s the future, we won’t complain (much). Of course, you can’t buy it, as it’s not on sale yet; as Audi puts it, the car is currently merely a “high-tech mobile laboratory.”
