By: Dave Abrahams
Ingolstadt, Germany - Audi's showpiece for the upcoming Auto Shanghai 2015 is this long, sleek five-door soft-roader called the Prologue Allroad concept.
And it's right on trend with the hottest car-show focus areas of the past couple of years: high-performance plug-in hybrid powertrains and seriously sexy gizmotronics.
At 5130mm overall it's a big car, the way upwardly mobile Chinese like them, with the emphasis on rear-seat luxury, boasting 540kW and 900Nm of combined income from a four-litre biturbo petrol V8 and an electric motor built into its eight-speed tiptronic transmission.
Audi quotes 0-100 in 3.5 seconds, at a nominal cost of only 2.4 litres per 100km, according to the NEDC standard for plug-in hybrids, and a pure-electric range of 54km from the 14.1kWh lithium-ion battery pack under the floor of the boot.
Lightweight axles with quattro all-wheel drive, dynamic all-wheel steering and adaptive air-suspension carry 20-inch carbon-ceramic brake discs inside specially made five-spoked 22-inch alloy rims.
The show car's wedge-shaped headlights feature Matrix laser technology; light is broken down into countless tiny pixels, making the possibilities for distributing this light virtually limitless, while LED light guides sketch a new e-tron light signature at the upper and outer edges of the air inlets, which are bisected by the bumper blade.
ELECTRICKERY
The interior of the Audi Prologue Allroad is designed around a new display and operating concept. The entire fascia is a TFT screen, divided into three touch-screen displays. The front passenger can set up the infotainment display and than swipe it across to appear in front of the driver.
There's a fourth display for aircon settings, infotainment and text input in the centre console, on a very thin flexible film; it lies flat when not in use but moves up at an angle as soon as the car is started.
The instrument panel uses semi-transparent mirrors to generate a virtual display on three levels, while rear passengers, cosseted in two individual seats, use a fifth touch-screen display to adjust the seats, aircon and infotainment (presented on two very thin, slightly curved removable LED tablets on the back of the front seats) for their area - or exchange data with the driver.
But the electrickery starts before the car even gets moving; an intelligent 'virtual butler' identifies the occupants from their phones as they get in, and adjusts the seats and aircon to their individual preferences, while making suggestions for music and route planning.
Then the passengers can slide their phones into the 'easy slots' in the centre consoles for wireless inductive charging; if a call comes in, it will go directly to speaker.