Audi Reckons Its Self Driving Tech Could Spell Disaster For Short Haul Flights

Recently Tesla has been getting a whole lot of attention for its Autopilot driving technology, but it’s not the only manufacturer doing the whole autonomous driving thing. Audi is also leading the way with its Piloted Driving vehicles; an RS7 has navigated its way around Hockenheim race track, and an A7 has driven on American roads from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas without human interruption.

According to Sven Schuwirth, vice president of brand strategy and digital business at Audi, as this technology develops it’ll take the place of using aeroplanes to travel cross country. Talking to Dezeen, he said “In the future you will not need a business hotel or a domestic flight,” adding “We can disrupt the entire business of domestic flights.”

The way cars are designed right now makes that hard to envisage, but Schuwirth reckons that once driverless cars go mainstream, they’ll ditch traditional aesthetics.

“Today’s cars are shaped to be only an emotional piece and to be very comfortable and safe,” he said. “So in an autonomous world, if cars do not have accidents any more, the cars do not have to have a small amount of glass, a lot of metal, a lot of bumpers and all that stuff. It could be a bit more transparent.”

He reckons that in the future, car interiors will be able to transform depending on your needs. Theoretically, then, a desk and chair could allow you to work on the move, before morphing into a bed to allow you to sleep while your car scurries to its destination. It could even allow the driver to switch from sporty seats while in control of the car, to more comfortable armchair-like seats when they let the car take over.

However, this is some way off; as many as 20 years away, according to Schuwirth. Taking the United States as an example, it can take the best part of a couple of days to drive from one side to the other, so it’s hard to believe that the convenience of avoiding airport security would be enough to convince people to take the car. Perhaps once autonomous vehicles are more prominent, they’ll be able to drive well above the current speed limits? Still, slightly shorter trips that allow you to drive doorstep to doorstep could easily replace trips to the airport, especially when it doesn’t interrupt your work schedule.

The current state of Audi’s Piloted Driving system requires the driver to always be in the driving seat, legally still in control of the vehicle even when autonomous driving in engaged. That’ll change as legislation catches up with the technology, and public trust of self driving cars shifts.

It’s not all doom and gloom for proper petrolheads, though. Schuwirth came up with quite a nice reason for welcoming driverless cars into our lives: “Cars are the last place on the planet, besides maybe your room in your flat, where you can be on your own. Maybe you simply want to do something different in your car, such as relax, communicate, talk, dream or think.”