Creating the A6

Audi has fired almost every technical weapon at its disposal at the all-new A6 limousine to hit its targets of class-leading comfort, ride quality and low cabin noise.

The eighth-generation A6, which will be officially launched at the Geneva motor show in March, now shares the flagship A8’s chassis architecture, its suspension systems, its Level 3-capable self-driving system and its obsession with refinement.

The A6’s engineering chief, Project Manager Renald Lassowski, says the A6 will deliver more interior space and filled with class-leading infotainment technology while bringing a chassis with active air springs, anti-body roll and cruise-control systems.

Lassowski says the new A6 has everything it needs to become the class leader around the world.

The A6 will slot between the sporty A7 and the unashamedly luxurious A8, all the while sharing much of their technologies.

The interior is dominated by a dash layout that includes a larger touchscreen infotainment system and a huge leap in LTE, car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure connectivity. 

It’s now so clever that its navigation system no longer plots routes from a computer somewhere in behind the infotainment screen, but now takes the destination input from the driver via either written, touch or voice inputs and calculates the route on the server, then sends that back to the car.

It combines that with real-time navigation information from the HERE digital map service to avoid traffic trouble spots at the instant they occur.

“As soon as the internet connection is established, the route will not be calculated by the car but by the server,” Lassowski explains. “If the server will say, no, there are too many cars, use another road, it will re-route you.”

Most of the usual functions controlled by either the steering-wheel mounted buttons from the 12.3-inch instrument cluster, the 10.1-inch main touchscreen or the 8.6-inch screen that doubles both as a climate-control unit and a writing pad.

“It allows each driver to personalise up to 400 parameters, what is best for you and what you regularly use, which remain in their keys and is automatically conveyed to the car each time that key is used,” designer Helmut Lang says.

Up to 40 driver assistance systems are governed by a zFAS central computer that converts data from all manner of sensors (plus mapping data from HERE and LTE-sourced swarm intelligence) and instantly translates them into the same language and instructs each part of the car on what it should do next.

The top-level cars will have five radars, a LiDar, five cameras, a night-vision camera and 12 ultrasonic sensors feeding it information, allowing the car to drive autonomously for up to 30 seconds on four-lane divided roads*.

All of this is clad, its designer Lang says, in a body that looks so stretched it would seem to belong to an even higher class of car.

The new styling is dominated by the headlights. There are three headlight systems, rising from the stock LED units, through to seven-unit LED Matrix lights to full LED HD Matrix light, with 16 segments for low beam and another 16 for high beam. It also offers up a choice of two taillights, including one that puts on a welcome or departure show, with the dynamic blinker.

“The theme is to make things coveted,” Lang explained. “With the greenhouse shoulder line we reduced the visual height wherever we could.

“The down line on the door is there to make the blister look bigger, with a visual effect. There is a 3D wedge in it.

“But the shoulder line was a late addition. The A6 got all the way to clay without it before we thought it was a class layer. The shoulder line makes it look much lower and one class bigger.”

More practically, the body also now has a boot opening that is a full metre wide, covering a luggage area that is unchanged in size from its predecessor at 530 litres.

It will also be the first A6 to use a 48-Volt mild-hybrid electrical system, which will arrive on the 3.0-litre TFSI 55 V6, and it will be joined by the 55 TDI, with other engines arriving later. 

It's mild-hybrid, run by a belt-driven starter-generator motor, can turn off the motor and ‘sail’ for up to 40 seconds between 55 and 150km/h to save fuel, and it can shut it down for start-stop at up to 22km/h, too.

The launch 55 TDI will deliver 210kW of power and 620Nm of torque, while the rollout calls for a 170kW/500Nm version of the same V6 and a 150kW/400Nm four-cylinder 40 TDI as a front- or all-wheel drive.

Only the four-cylinder cars will use the S tronic seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, while the rest of the range will use eight-speed hydraulic automatic transmissions.

Australian specification is yet to be confirmed, but base A6s in Europe will use fixed-rate steel springs and dampers to control the five-link rear and four-link front suspensions. All V6 models will be quattro, with the option of a rear-mounted sport differential.

The new Audi A6 is due in Australia before the end of the year. Register your interest in the new Audi A6 to receive updates from Audi Australia in the lead up to its arrival.