Audi Gives Us Polite Driving

We already know every automaker is working toward creating autonomous driving features for our vehicles and this technology is expected to be offered on the market very soon. While the expectations we have for this technology may simply be that these vehicles can perform the actions needed to drive on the road through the use of technology we might not ask that these vehicles are able to perform basic actions of driving for us, but when it comes to the minuscule nuances that make up driving in a crowd or on roads with other people what it is we haven’t given this much thought.

Audi has put some thought into the driving needs of people and the habits we have on the road. Audi has nicknamed an A7 that is being piloted by autonomous driving technology “Jack” which has learned how to be considerate on the road to be able to seamlessly fit right into the driving habits we already have on the road. Not only is Jack able to learn habits and anticipate what we might do while driving, this car won’t suffer the road rage that takes over many of us and won’t end up making the same mistakes that we make when driving.

Jack is able to not only able to engage the turn signals for moving from lane to lane and to obey all the traffic laws but it has the ability to do some of the things we do every day. Typically when we change lanes, we tend to move closer to the lane lines before actually moving over. When passing trucks Jack can give a slightly wider berth which is certainly another habit that we have as humans when we drive our cars on the road. This makes Jack a smart driving autonomous driving vehicle.

While these seem like small changes, they are habits we have that are meant to keep everyone more comfortable on the road. Other ways Jack is making changes and will make the decisions that help while driving is when other cars need to merge into its lane. Jack will decide based on the traffic and the area around the car what it wants to do when driving. Jack will either speed up or slow down based upon the needs of the cars working to enter the lane. It seems this is the most polite part of this feature since many of us won’t allow others to enter the road to merge.

Because they have spent so much time and money developing this feature Audi is ready to offer the autonomous driving on their next generation of the A8 which will be on the market next year. They may not have the fully autonomous technology completely worked out, but they will have some form of the feature on the next A8. Audi has led the way in this area of technology with the driverless TTS that has been able to handle Pike’s Peak and the RS7 Sportback that turned in better laps at the Hockenheim Motodrome than some professional drivers. Knowing this we can expect to have the autonomous vehicles with the right habits on the road in the next couple years for us to enjoy a polite type of driving.