It's like a depressed "Trilogy" playing the final chapter and ushering in the last small climax.
The third model of the Audi Sphere series, the Audi Urbansphere Concept, has been officially released.
Compared with the first two concept cars, it should be said that the Audi urbansphere concept car that finally appeared in the finale is more worthy of our attention.
As for the specific reasons? Let's start with a brief recap.
In the second half of last year, Audi has released two sphere series concept models, as shown in the above picture.
The first is an electric two-door roadster, the Audi Skysphere Concept.
With the vision of future autonomous driving GT models, using variable wheelbase technology, it is suitable for driving or driving people.
The second is the Audi Grandsphere concept car.
Positioned in a large-size luxury sedan, four-seat layout, wheelbase of nearly 3.2 meters beyond the Audi A8, no display design, all using projection for information display and occupant interaction.
The third in the Audi Sphere series, the newly released Audi Urbansphere concept car.
The first two products positioned themselves on gt cars and large luxury cars, respectively.
As the third model, the Audi urbansphere concept car is obviously positioned as a large-size multi-functional model, and the core is how to explain the intelligent large space.
Of course, if you have seen the pictures of the Audi urbansphere concept car, you will know that I have written a nonsense.
However, in addition to the simple positioning difference, the more significance of the Audi urbansphere concept body is that its core element is "Chinese localization".
Unlike all previous Audi concept cars, the interior part of the Audi urbansphere concept car is the first in Audi history to be completely independently completed by the Audi China team, and it is also the first time in Audi's history to try to co-create a design model with Chinese consumers.
In the words of Wu Yunzhou, head of interior design at Audi China, this is the first "child" of the Audi China design team.
The exterior of this concept car was designed by Audi in Germany, and the vehicle entity was also completed in Germany.
However, the data for the interior design is all provided by the Audi China R&D Center in Beijing's 798 Art District, inspired by traditional Chinese courtyard design.
Although I haven't seen much for the time being, the interior style of this concept car overlaps with traditional Chinese courtyard architecture, but this practice is indeed a precedent in Audi history.
As for the reason, Audi mentioned that compared with European consumers, Chinese consumers pay more attention to the in-car experience and pay more attention to the digital technology in the car.
And more importantly, the Audi urbansphere concept car itself is positioned as a "future smart travel space focusing on China's urban transportation".
Therefore, such a smart electric concept car facing the Chinese market and facing the future.
The most important part of the interior cockpit about the ride experience is handed over to the local designer who is most familiar with the local market, which is obviously not at all faulty.
And understand this premise, then we can carefully look at the interior of the Audi urbansphere concept car, we can find some interesting places.
First of all, it is still "big", the space is really large, so large that it is completely to cater to consumers in the Chinese market.
In terms of size, this is the largest size in the history of the Audi concept car and the largest model in The history of Audi.
In terms of the wheelbase specifically related to space, the Audi urbansphere concept car has a wheelbase of 3.40 meters, which is longer than the Audi A8, Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Toyota Alpha and so on.
Its wheelbase is similar to that of the Fujian Mercedes-Benz Vito commercial vehicle with 9 seats, but it only has four seats in front and rear.
One can imagine the affluence of the interior space.
Secondly, in the intelligent design of the interior, the center console is a solid wood panel, except for a small display on the steering wheel, there is no other screen in the front row.
The information is displayed entirely by projection, either an AR-HUD or projected onto a solid wood panel, but the projection area is adjustable.
There is an induction area on the solid wood panel for logistics touch interaction, and the car can also interact through eye tracking, gesture control, and speech recognition.
A total of three large screens in the car are in the rear row, the front seat back has a separate display, the rear row also has a transparent OLED large screen, across the entire car on both sides, can be split screen, has a 5G network, and is equipped with eye tracking function.
This transparent display is usually placed on the roof of the car, put down when needed, and can be integrated with the sunroof when not needed, which does not affect the appreciation of the night sky at all.
The four passengers in the vehicle each have an independent digital ecosystem, through a health app, to scan the passengers' faces, and then feedback to adjust the different light, temperature, volume and so on in their respective areas.
There is even a retractable partition in the center of the back row, which can isolate the back row into two relatively private spaces, which is very suitable during the epidemic
The car seats are also as comfortable as possible, the independent seat backrest can be tilted up to 60 degrees, the leg rest can be extended at the same time, each seat is also equipped with a separate audio area, the armrests of the left and right doors are equipped with VR glasses, due to the existence of a variety of interaction methods, so lying down can control the entertainment system.
In addition, the B-pillar was cancelled due to the design of the door opening.
When passengers get on the bus, the entire interior space of the Audi urbansphere concept car will be open to the passengers, at the same time, the seats will rotate outwards, and a "red carpet" like light will shine under the feet, this small ritual is absolutely honorable.
Finally, in terms of interior details, a set of tea sets was arranged in the car for Chinese users, and there was even a drinking water equipment on the Audi urbansphere concept car.
And it is not a "plug-in" drinking fountain, or a water outlet designed between the two seats in the rear of the original car, although it is not known whether hot water or cold water, but this...
Thanks to this is not a hydrogen fuel concept car, otherwise energy saving, environmental protection, recycling and recycling can not be done too extremely.
After talking about the interior part completed by the local Chinese designers, let's look at the exterior.
To be honest, the appearance of the Audi urbansphere concept car actually looks quite unexpected.
The car is 5.5 meters long, about 1.78 meters high, more than 2 meters wide, and the wheels reach 24 inches, which is a huge size.
Audi officially did not say that the car is an MPV, but the wedge-shaped outline of the Audi urbansphere concept car looks like an MPV.
And compared with the first two concept cars released in the sphere series, the appearance of this largest Audi urbansphere concept car is indeed not a bright feeling.
The only thing that can be remarkable is the headlights that the "lamp factory" Audi relies on to go out of the circle.
The headlight group looks slender and narrow, but the digital lighting unit inside can adjust the focal length of the light, enlarge the lighting area or focus on a certain piece, just like the human pupil, so it is also called the "Audi Eye".
In the front and rear of the body, there are large-area CNC lighting units, which are not only the logo design of the body appearance, but also as an interactive tool with the outside world.
In particular, the octagonal one-piece grille on the front face is actually a digital lighting panel, or a "light canvas".
Similar to the taillights of the Audi urbansphere concept car, they are displayed in a variety of colors and shapes to achieve interactive functions.
But to be honest, compared to the taillights that look decent, the Audi urbansphere concept car front face such a large luminous panel, in terms of beauty is still too simple and rough.
All three concept models of the Audi sphere series are based on the PPE platform jointly developed by Audi and Porsche.
For the urbansphere concept car, audi gave the power data:
The front and rear motors have a total output of 295 kW and a torque of up to 690 N·m, and are equipped with an electric quattro four-wheel drive system;
The capacity of the battery module is 120 kWh, and the total cruising range is expected to reach 750 km under the WLTP standard;
800V charging technology, up to 270kW charging power, charging for ten minutes, can increase the cruising range of more than 300 kilometers. In 25 minutes, the battery can be charged from 5% to 80%;
Another difference is that the Audi urbansphere concept car can choose to deactivate the front axle motor as needed to reduce energy consumption when coasting.
But here is a little puzzling, when coasting, is not the front axle motor to reverse and participate in the recovery of kinetic energy?
Finally, as a concept product deeply involved in Chinese local designers and developed for China's traffic environment, the future mass production version of the Audi urbansphere concept car will undoubtedly be born at the Audi FAW PPE plant in Changchun.
Although Audi has previously said that all three products of the Sphere series will not actually be mass-produced, I think the urbansphere concept car may be an exception...
Moreover, in fact, from the design point of view, although the appearance of the Audi urbansphere concept car is not as imaginative as the first two, it is also the product that looks closest to the mass production model in the Audi sphere series trilogy.
Audi plans to launch 10 pure electric vehicles in the Chinese market by 2026, and Changchun will produce the first PPE platform models in 2024, after which the PPE platform will produce medium-sized to full-size electric vehicles.
So what will the final mass-produced version of the Audi urbansphere, which is completely designed by the local design, and the size and space are huge?
Let's look forward to it.