Audi Adds NVIDIA Graphics to its Cars - 2010 CES

PC gamers need no introduction to NVIDIA, the company that makes some of the best computer graphics cards for high-end PCs. Now Audi owners will get to experience the power of great graphics as the two companies have announced that future Audi models will have their multimedia interface system powered by the latest NVIDIA graphics processors.

Like systems being announced by other car manufacturers, the third generation Audi system will have the ability to synchronize with smart phones. The nav system, which will first appear in the new A8 sedan, will use Google Earth for its display giving drivers a photo-realistic view of the world ahead of them.

This collaboration with NVIDIA has come about since the Volkswagen Group has had an advanced electronic development lab in Silicon Valley. Its engineers have worked closely with high tech companies including Google. Audi realized that it needed to be able to have the means to upgrade a model's electronic systems much more rapidly than is normally done with the mechanical parts, which often remain unchanged during a five to seven year product cycle.

New Audis have been engineered so electronics systems such as navigation unit can be upgraded in mid-cycle without having to wait for an all-new model to appear.

One of the VW engineers who worked in Silicon Valley is now at Audi's main headquarters in Ingolstadt, Germany where he is integrating the new technology into production cars. He tells us that eventually NVIDIA graphics processors will find their way into all Volkswagen and Audi models.

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About the Author
John Rettie wrote his first road test in his native England in 1971. As a freelancer, he has traveled the world extensively covering new vehicle introductions, racing and the auto industry. He is a member of the World Car of the Year and the International Car of the Year juries.