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We Say: Audi’s Luxobarge Looks and Feels Amazing. Shame the Tech Lags Behind

- Tom Harrison

If you want to see what a manufacturer is capable of engineering, you  look at its flagship. Its supercar, or its big saloon. So as Audi’s new big saloon, the A8 ought to be a good indication of what the brand’s immediate future will look and feel like. With one caveat – it’s not quite finished.

According to its maker, the new A8 is the first production car that’s been “developed for conditional automation at level three”, here via a system called Traffic Jam Pilot. In theory it enables drivers to take their eyes of the road and do something else, like watch a film on the infotainment screen, at up to 37mph on multi-lane roads with a central reservation. But as its introduction is “wholly dependent on the clarification of statutory framework in each individual market”, it’s still a year or so of.

Other flagship technologies aren’t available from launch, either. All A8s get adaptively damped air suspension as standard, but from “early next year” you’ll be able to specify a system that, with the help of a camera, can “see” potholes, speed bumps and so on and prepare the suspension to cope.