Audi prides itself on what it calls its lighting leadership—essentially the automaker's love of all things LED—what with the brand's signature LED running-light design, and its early adoption of full-LED head- and taillights. But LEDs are becoming ubiquitous, and the tech has even begun to trickle into economy cars. Then there was the gauntlet thrown down by BMW a few years back, in which that other German company decided it was going to leapfrog LEDs and work on laser headlights. We know what you're thinking at this point: oh, snap! Well, Audi's not taking BMW's threat lying down, and is bringing a laser-headlight-equipped version of its Sport Quattro concept to the 2014 Consumer Electronics show to prove it.
Critically, we have yet to see BMW's laser headlights, so Audi's technically got the Bavarians beat here. The Sport Quattro Laser Light concept you see here wears four laser-lit peepers. Audi claims its headlights—which are powered by laser diodes, not just pure laser beams—boast a 1640-foot range, which is twice the distance LED high beams can throw light. The laser diodes also are about three times as bright as LED high beams, and each diode measures just a few micrometers in diameter. Actually, on the Sport Quattro, Audi has mixed the laser lighting with its matrix LED tech—probably to continue showing off this trick technology's auto-highbeam capabilities. And although this is Audi's first crack at laser-lit headlights, the company did put a laser rear fog light on the A2 concept a few years back.
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As for the Sport Quattro Laser Light concept Audi fitted its laser diodes to, it is an adaptation of the Sport Quattro concept shown at this year's Frankfurt auto show. Here, it's painted a rich hue of red, although it appears Audi kept the car's 700-hp hybrid powertrain intact. There's a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 mated to an electric motor and an eight-speed automatic transmission driving all four wheels. At the rear there's a torque-vectoring sport differential, and the V-8 gets an engine stop-start system and cylinder deactivation. Thanks to a 14.1-kWh lithium-ion battery pack, the Sport Quattro concept can whir around for up to 31 miles on electrons alone, while at the other end of the spectrum, it can do 190 mph and hit 62 mph in 3.7 seconds. We don't much care which comes first, laser lights or this 700-hp hybrid, but we'd like to see them soon. Unfortunately, the lights likely are several years away from production. So . . . can we have that limited-production Sport Quattro now?
from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com
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