All Sections

Audi Sport quattro laserlight concept makes standard headlights seem dim

Audi’s Sport quattro hybrid concept car returns with laser headlights and a swanky new red paintjob.

Audi has revealed a concept that can see further at night than just about any other car on the road. The Sport quattro laserlight, which will be unveiled at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, uses a mixture of LED lights and laser light technologies to illuminate the path ahead.

The Sport quattro laserlight concept is identical to the Sport quattro first seen at the Frankfurt motor show, save for a ‘Plasma Red’ paintjob instead of yellow and clever headlights that use MatrixBeam LEDs for low beam and ‘powerful laser diodes’ for high beam.

Audi claims the diodes are much smaller than a standard high-beam LED (think a few microns in diameter), yet can illuminate the road ahead by nearly 500 metres and are three times brighter, giving the driver more time to see and react to anything that may sneak out of the dark.

Analogue dials have been ditched in favour of a high-resolution display that uses three-dimensional graphics to convey information such as your current speed and fuel level as well as navigation directions. Different modes allow the driver to customise the display – in Classic view, for instance, the speedometer is most prominent.

Audi’s MMI touchpad and a new user interface, the latter of which is said to mimic the intuitiveness of a smartphone, have been implemented to make controlling the display a doddle.

Power comes from two sources, a 560PS (552bhp) 4.0-litre V8 bi-turbo petrol engine that develops a whopping 700Nm (516.29 lb/ft) of torque and a ‘disc-shaped electric motor’ that produces an additional 110kW (148bhp) and 400Nm (295 lb/ft) of oomph. Put your foot down and you have a total of 700PS (692bhp) on tap. Crikey.

An eight-speed tiptronic gearbox and four-wheel drive quattro drivetrain help the Sport quattro concept sprint from 0 to 62mph of 3.7 seconds up to a top speed of 190mph.

All that performance doesn’t necessarily come at a cost. Audi reckons in all-electric mode the Sport Quattro laserlight can travel 31 miles before the 14.1kWh battery runs flat. In Hybrid mode 113mpg and 59g/km of CO2 emissions are claimed. Cylinder-on-Demand technology that deactivates four cylinders when driving steadily further helps the cause.

Audi is yet to announce whether the Sport Quattro or its laserlight cousin will ever hit production. Whether it does or not, you can bet your house the hybrid and headlight technologies will filter down in some form to a four-ringed car you can actually buy.

We’ll keep you posted if Audi decides CES 2014 is the place to let more information out of the bag.

Audi Sport quattro laserlight concept car pictures

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *