Some say it will ship in mid 2010
Audi's motto is 'Vorsprung durch Technik', or advancement trough
technology and the German carmaker was always keen to adopt the latest
tech for its four wheeled babies. This is especially true of the
comapny's flagship A8 series, which was always packed with top
technology. It was the first car to be built on an aluminium space
frame and it always featured a number of geeky goodies hidden behind a
bunch of acronyms.
We're not Carzilla or Top Gear, but the new Audi A8 will be the first model to feature a new sat-nav system
powered by Nvidia's Tegra chipset and that's what we find interesting. The system will feature Google Earth
images, as well as detailed 3D models of European cities. Audi claims
the system's Nvidia 3D graphics processor will render entire maps
topographically, shading tunnels and bridges.
Audi also plans to incorporate Google Street View in the system at a
later point and it promises detailed 3D city models with plenty of
travel information from Wikipedia and detailed weather reports.
The system will use GPRS/EDGE, but a UMTS module will be added in 2010.
Audi claims the system's connectivity diminishes when traveling at over
125mph, or 200kph. Looking at anything other than the road at such
speeds is probably not a good idea anyway.
More
here.