One of the leading car manufacturing companies, Audi has recently announced that they are introducing a new technology that enables cars to 'talk' with traffic lights. This technology will send a warning message to the drivers regarding the status of the traffic light whenever it turns red or green. The company said that this new feature is intended to ease the driving experience while it is hoped to be helpful in decreasing the traffic congestion on highways and any types of vehicular accidents.
According to the gathered reports from BBC, the car manufacturing company has introduced the 'vehicular-to-infrastructure' or known as 'V-to-I' technology on A4 models that are built after June 2016. This newly-found technology will also be integrated on some Q7 models next year. Audi explained that the operational information and safety of the feature will be transmitted wirelessly between the vehicles and lights over the cloud.
Though the new tech had the potential to eventually help decrease accidents and congestion on the road, general manager of the connected vehicles division of the company, Pom Malhotra, said that it was designed primarily as a comfort and convenience feature rather than a safety feature. Malhotra explained that this new system will allow the vehicle to show a countdown timer of the traffic light before it hits green. Based on this mechanism, it will reduce the driver's anxiety of waiting and will pay more attention as the light is about to go.
According to Yibada, Audi is also working on a new related technology called the 'V2V system' or the 'vehicle-to-vehicle' system that will allow a car to communicate to the other cars around to avoid collisions. This said feature will be able to warn the driver for a possible vehicular collision with other vehicles. For the meantime, the car manufacturing company is now collaborating with Traffic Technology Services in order to make their new system a success.
