Audi A8 rises before side impact to save occupants

The Audi A8 and A8L were launched earlier this year at the Audi Summit in Barcelona.

Active suspension system in a car is primarily designed to increase the ground clearance and improve the ride quality. Audi recently demonstrated the system in the A8 and A8L cars which can be used to enhance safety of the occupants as well. In the moments before a collision on the sides (T-bone), the car's suspension height is increased up to 80 mm on the side of the impact in under 0.5 seconds.

The 4th gen A8’s suspension system makes use of sensors which are connected to the central driver assistance controller (zFAS). The sensors along with zFAS controller can detect a side impact collision at speeds greater than 25 km/h. Thus, in case of a collision, the brunt of the force will be borne by the car's floor pan and side sills rather than the doors. Audi claims that this reduces the load on the occupants due to the side impact by up to 50 percent.

According to Audi, the A8 was the first production car specifically developed for autonomous driving. The car gets functions like traffic jam assist, for driving in slow moving traffic up to 60 km/h. It also gets a remote parking feature that lets the car unpark and park itself out of a parking / garage space on its own - without the driver present in the car.

The A8 will get a choice of two turbo V6 engine options - a 282 BHP 3.0-litre TDI diesel and a 335 BHP 3.0-litre TFSI petrol. In some markets, Audi will launch the A8 and A8L with a choice of 4.0-litre petrol and diesel engines with 429 BHP and 453 BHP, respectively. An e-tron plug-in hybrid variant of the A8L will also be available. It will use a 3.0-litre V6 TFSI petrol engine along with an electric motor to cumulatively develop 443 BHP and 700 Nm of torque with an all-electric range of 50 km.

Source - Car and Driver