More Innovation than an S-Class? All-New Audi A8 Released

New Audi A8 Released

Rewind to the advent of the big, luxury saloon and copious amounts of expensive and shiny or woody materials was the order of the day. With more chrome than Brakpan and more wood than Hot House, you certainly knew who was boss, riding in the back of his supercharged Mercedes-Benz or winged Cadillac. The focus then shifted to turning the back of your mini-limo into a mirror image of your lounge, not the greatest idea in the velour-crazed 70’s where brown was considered to be chic. Sies. Say what you will, however, because despite the questionable taste and thirsty engines required to lug your lounge around, the segment continued to soldier on with executives flocking like sheep to the voluptuous comfort of their S-Classes, 7-Series’, LS’ and later on, Audi A8’s.The S-Class was always the king of CoriCraft in your car, with a good smattering of safety and innovation to remain current, but it would seem, in recent years, that Audi has now taken the baton from Mercedes-Benz in the innovation race, with the segment now overtaking your living room as a whole, exhibiting more technology than you will ever need in the comfort of your home. Take the previous generation Audi A8, for example, while it may have looked like an elongated A4, it was one of the first cars to feature a high-speed fibre-optic data network connecting multiple data processors and was also the first vehicle top feature a static adaptive front lighting system – in 2002! It also featured fingerprint recognition, snazzy pop-up B&O speakers in the dash and received adaptive cruise control in 2007. And if that wasn’t enough for you, you could even have it with a Lamborghini derived all-aluminium V10 in the form of the Audi S8.

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The current generation features noise cancelling in the cabin, which obviously wowed the world, so if that was anything to go by, the all-new Audi A8, unveiled today at the Audi Summit, will take the fight straight to its competitors with some serious tech. We actually know this, already, with Audi saying that this new (D5) generation features artificial intelligence and is the first production car in the world to have been developed for “highly automated driving.” It also has matrix reading lights. Yes, you read that correctly – you can adjust the brightness, size and position of your reading light in the rear seat!

Another first for Audi, the new A8 features Audi AI active suspension which works in a similar way to Mercedes-Benz’s ABC (Active Body Control) making use of a forward facing camera to read the road ahead before increasing or reducing the load individually on all four of the wheels. In the event of a side impact, this system is also able to raise the body on the side of the impact by up to 80 mm within 0.5 seconds, thus exposing an even more resistant part of the body to the impact zone, clever…Other notable features include Audi’s 48 v electrical system across the range – making all derivatives “mild hybrids”, capable of coasting along without the use of the combustion engine for up to 40 km. – active noise cancellation, 4-wheel steering and one of the most advanced lighting systems ever seen on a motor vehicle.

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Powering the Audi A8 is a range of 6 powertrains, two 3.0-litre motors, a TDI (210 kW) and TFSI (250 kW), two 4.0-litre units, a TDI (320 kW) and TFSI (338 kW), a twin-turbocharged W12 unit in the A8 L (430 kW) and a plug-in-hybrid featuring the 3.0-litre TFSI unit and an electric motor, integrated into the gearbox with its own clutch, which produce a combined 330 kW and 700 N.m.

Audi A8 Pricing in South Africa

With no word yet on which derivatives we’ll be receiving, expect to see the all-new Audi A8 on South African roads within the next year or so with pricing likely to start just below R2 000 000.

Enquire about a new or used Audi vehicle at Audi Centurion here!