[danners]

This year i took part in a student competition sponsored by Audi, so we were around people from Audi that work in that area for quite some time. What they told us is basically that they use the term piloted driving since they don't believe it would be a good thing to have fully autonomous driving. Piloted driving means for them that the car is assisting the driver if he chooses to, but doesn't take away any power of the driver.

The argument they brought up again and again is that they are very concerned about taking away the fun of the driving. I think their marketing team told them to use the term piloted driving, to make sure no customer believes the new cars will take the steering wheel out of the customers hands and take his ability to drive in a fun way. I guess that comes from the view they have of themselves as producers of fun to drive cars, which the customers buy for the sake of having fun driving them.

If you drive in a nice Audi it seems to be hard to imagine that for most people driving a car is not as much fun. They also made it clear that they will rather not having an autonomous car then having one which would be not "Audi" looking ( camera on top etc.). At least they use these arguments when they talk about the Google car being no threat to them.

[TeeWEE]

Ok, I understand that.. However my question is: What capabilities does this "piloted driving" system have... Can it drive on it own? Does it only have adaptive cruise control? Can it switch lanes? Can i sleep while on the highway (probably not)..

I like driving a lot, but 1.5 hours on a highway tend to be boring.

[zyxley]

This makes me wonder what plan, if any, they have to attract people (like myself, for example) who don't enjoy driving for its own sake but would happily pay luxury prices for a luxury-grade self-driving car.

[danners]

I think they don't see customers like that as an viable market for them. They seem to be convinced that a person that buys an Audi buys it for the fun of driving.

In reality most Audi in Germany seem to be driven by business people and consultants that need to travel a lot on the Autobahn, and i can imagine some of them wanting to have fun while spending 3+ hours a day driving, but most of them would be glad to do other stuff during that time.

But they probably did some market research, we will see if it works out for them.

[MrBuddyCasino]

Exactly. The thing is, a big advantage of going by train is that you can do some work, the travel time is not completely wasted. Why wouldn't you want to have that in a car, especially as a busy consultant?

I think Audi is over-estimating the 'fun' component - for many people in my generation, driving is a dangerous and annoying necessity. But maybe thats just the IT bubble I'm living in.