Audi won’t bring their autonomous driving technology to the United States.
Audi’s flagship sedan, the A8, is set to arrive later this year Stateside with a new set of engines, a new mild hybrid system, and other new technologies. But one thing that Audi A8 will have in Europe is autonomous driving technology. Here in the US, we get a whole lot of bupkiss.
Well, not entirely bupkiss. According to Car and Driver, the A8 will still have driver assistance options like includes blind spot monitoring, cross-traffic alert, adaptive cruise control, and lane-keeping, but the level three autonomous driving system called Traffic Jam Pilot will be Europe-only technology.
Level three autonomous driving is the level at which most functions can be handled by the car’s artificial intelligence, but the driver still has to step in for certain driving situations. But, as the name suggests, in a traffic jam, Traffic Jam Pilot can handle the tedious start-and-stop activity and let the driver chill out and watch something on the car’s center display.
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Tesla autopilot and other self-driving technologies are currently at level two autonomy, which requires the driver to pay attention and have their hands on the wheel at all times. Audi would have been one of the first carmakers to achieve level three autonomy, but it seems that the German luxury brand doesn’t like the current regulatory climate to bring their self-driving tech to the US.
And who can blame them? So far, states are all individually enacting their own self-driving car laws that make it a nightmare for foreign carmakers to sell the technology in the US. Congress is also still chewing on enacting country-wide rules regarding autonomous cars.
So, it makes sense to not include Traffic Jam Pilot for the American-spec version of the A8. It will also not just be a software issue—Audi is removing key components that allow the technology to function, such as cameras and sensors, so if the regulatory conditions do improve it would require an extensive refit to get Traffic Jam Pilot to work.
And yet another example of how Europe gets all the cool automotive toys. Oh well.