Last week , Audi held their first ever Audi summit in Barcelona, Spain. The summit not only served as an introduction of Audi’s future ambitions to the world but also as a launch avenue for the much awaited Audi A8 replacement. Audi’s ageing A8 has been long overdue for a replacement especially since German rivals BMW and Mercedes replaced their flagships last year with Mercedes recently updating the current generation S-Class. We would have mentioned Lexus’ LS but sadly we feel very strongly that the grand executive category has always been a three horse race with a very obvious winner.

Audi’s A8 has one very tall order: to challenge the status quo and dethrone the king of the grand executives: the mighty S-Class. Over the years we’ve fallen in love with Audi not only because of their class leading interior design but also their subtle exterior design elements. We will reserve our judgement on the exterior design of the new A8 but we will admit that Audi has not disappointed with the interior.

This time round the A8 doesn’t come equipped with Audi’s famous pop up multimedia display. The designers chose to integrate the display into the center console. When this screen is off it has been designed to blend in with the rest of the dashboard due to its glass’ black panel look. Rather than have the traditional rotary dials for the climate control Audi’s designers have also chosen to have a smaller display beneath the larger one to control these elements. Audi has done away with the rotary push button and touch pad installed in their other models. Audi has integrated ‘haptic feedback’ into the displays so that each time the driver/co-driver touches an element on the screen there is a tiny vibration and sound emitted to confirm the action.

Audi has specifically engineered the A8 to drive autonomously from the get go. Audi’s Autonomous Innovation(A.I.)(no doubt a play on words)is an all out assault on similar systems in other manufacturers vehicles. Audi’s traffic jam pilot takes charge of driving on dual carriageways where there are physical barriers separating the two lanes for speeds of up to 60 kph. The system allows the driver to take their hands off the steering wheel completely and focus on other tasks if local laws allow it. Audi admits that this application will be implemented depending on the country’s laws in which the car will be sold. The car can also be maneuvered into and out of tight parking spaces using the remote parking pilot and its associated smartphone app without the need for a driver on board.

Permanent all wheel drive is now standard across the entire Audi A8 range. As is now the norm rear wheel steering has also been adopted across the range. There is now a fully adaptive suspension set up that is capable of adjusting the height of the suspension of each wheel individually depending on the car’s needs.

There will be five engines on offer all with mild hybrid technology. There are two entry level 3.0 litre V6 engines. A petrol producing 250 kw of power and a diesel producing 210 kw of power. There will also be two more powerful 4.0 litre V8 engines, a petrol and a diesel producing 338 kw and 320 kw of power respectively. There will be a plug in hybrid in the form of the Audi A8 L E-Tron quattro which will be launched a little later than the other models. It combines the 3.0 litre V6 petrol with an electric motor. This will have a combined output of 330 kw of power and 700 Nm of torque. Audi is using a Belt Alternator Starter in all five engines on offer. This enables the car to coast without the use of the engine. Audi claims that this has helped bring down the fuel consumption in all variants.

As impressive as all this appears on paper we can’t help but wonder if Audi’s drive for innovation is leading to a loss of its identity within the VW group. We can’t help but draw comparisons between the Bentley Flying Spur and the A8 especially in terms of interior tech. Bentley’s 6.0 litre W12 will also be available optionally in the new Audi A8. We also wonder how similar the new A8 is to the new Porsche Panamera. Nontheless we will wait for the actual group tests to pass on judgement.