Editor’s Blog on connectivity and the business car
THERE’S been talk for some time that the business car is becoming the office on the move. But that real moment of connectivity is getting closer.
Already we’ve had news of the BMW 6 Series Convertible offering emails on the move: these can either be displayed on the Control Display unit or they can be read aloud using a text-to-speech function (see our news story New 6 Series offers performance, economy…and emails).
Now with the new Audi A7 there’s the opportunity to turn your car into a wi-fi hot spot (imagine how popular that would be with the kids, able to ‘Facebook’ their way on any long journey).
Audi has actually been playing catch up with BMW in one sense – providing Google sat-nav mapping – but has taken it a step further.
As well as allowing you to pre-progam your route from the comfort of your office or home and ping the route off which will be relayed to your sat-nav once you start up the A7, as BMW owners have been able to do, it also has Google Earth 3D view.
“It is,” explains James Allitt, product manager for the A7, “exactly the same image you get on your pc or mac of Google Earth, but on the display monitor in the car.”
I’ve used it and it’s brilliant. You have to pay extra for this facility – there’s a £2050 premium for the technology package, but it really is worth having. As you can see on the picture (left), the level of detail is truly useful.
The car connects with Google via a UMTS module and a wi-fi hotspot through the Bluetooth car telephone.
What it means though is you can have wi-fi on the move. James says front and rear seat passengers can simultaneously connect as many as eight devices to the internet – from a laptop to an Apple iPad.
A roof-mounted antenna on the Audi A7 Sportback maintains a stable connection with data transfer speeds of up to 7.2 MB per second.
Of course all this tech is high end stuff. For most business car users, this is in-built car technology that can only be wished for. But as ever with such technology, there’s a cascade effect. It starts at the top, and works its way down the line.
The technology aspect is important to Audi. Here’s the director of Audi, Jeremy Hicks: “The new A7 is brimming with Audi technology. It’s how we attain our place at the prestige table.”
Given that assertion from the Audi boss, we can expect more of the same from Audi – and even better connectivity on the move.
More on the Audi A7
If you would like to read an interview with James Allitt, then see our special report Audi A7: interview with James Allitt, Audi A7 Sportback product manager.
We also have two road tests of the Audi A7 if you’d like to know more about them: there’s a business car test of the 3.0 TDI quattro diesel and a business car test of the 3.0 TFSI quattro supercharged petrol model.
