Natural Design by Audi & RCA
Last week, Audi gathered together a present the final designs from a group of promising Royal College of Art design students. The young designers were asked to dream up a new carbon-neutral mobility concept for the future inspired by the natural world. The ten best teams showed off their prototypes to a rapt audience, a culmination of six months of hard work and collaboration between the students and Audi experts. These models show the incredibly important prototype stage when developing new design ideas.
See the short film here. Vote on your favorite design on AudiUK’s Facebook page here.
Audi A 0 by Edward Starkey
Functional outer scaling sites on a skeletal chassis structure. It senses other road entities through biomechanics sensors, mimicking those seen in nature. Swarm Intelligence allows road users to work together as one entity, negation some of the congestion problems of today.
Audi V-Tron by Kaori Takasu, Alei Verspoor and Ferran Mestres
The function of the wires which are attached to the doors is to create easy access. The top exterior surface of the car is a special fabric which uses electrical stimulations to open/close small eye-like holes in order to change driving modes.
Audi E-Flux by Samuel Johnson and Emma Sheldon
This concept explores the transition of air, light and sound from the surrounding environment into the vehicle’s interior space. Using this principle the E-Flux reverses the trend of vehicle design which focuses on the interior rather than the outside world. This has allowed us to explore a new design direction while keeping the core identity of an Audi.
Dolphin by Michal Vlcek
This project explores how a vehicle can alter and adapt its movement with reference to the knowledge it acquires by observing the nature around it. It pursues ‘advancement through technology’ from a different perspective.
First hybrid wins Le Mans
On Sunday, an Audi diesel hybrid sports-prototype won the first Le Mans race. This epic race that takes place over 24 hours, traveled 3,201.18 miles over the race. Mashable called this win a “watershed event” for technology this week.
The new R18 e-tron quattro is a flyweel-based hybrid car with a turbo diesel engine. Unlike many other hybrids, the car has no battery in its system and uses diesel to power the back wheels, while a flywheel recovers braking energy and drives a motor in the front wheels. Audi is testing this system for use in consumer cars, and it is a great moment when the new technology works with flying colors under such intense conditions at Le Mans.
Le Mans is the world’s oldest active sports car race focused on endurance. It is widely known as an engineering test for the cars that test new technologies, as they must give optimum performance at lightening speeds for an incredibly long time. The race tests the ability for the car and its team to effectively manage consumables such as fuel, tires and braking materials. The driver is also tested, spending anywhere between one and four hours behind the wheel before swapping with two co-drivers.
Wall Street Journal: “Le Mans: Electrifying Victory for Audi’s Hybrid”
AFP: “Audi dominate Le Mans 24-Hour race”
theguardian: “Audi is first manufacturer to take Le Mans 24 Hours race with hybrid”
Mashable: “Top Tech this week, #1 Audi E-Tron: First Hybrid to Win Le Mans”
