Audi completed its luxury concept car triptych with the unveiling of the Urbansphere, a massive, fully autonomous people mover that somehow manages to be entirely too big for the roads it’s destined for.
According to Audi, the Urbansphere “is designed for use in congested Chinese megacities, but the concept is equally applicable to any other metropolis in the world.” And yet the vehicle’s amazing size – a full two feet longer than the 2022 Cadillac Escalade – makes it practically impossible to be driven on all city streets, regardless of country of origin.
Its minivan-like appearance in the renderings is misleading
Its minivan-like appearance in the renderings is misleading based on numbers provided by Audi. The automaker describes the Urbansphere as “the largest model in the Sphere family and of all previous Audi concept cars.”
The dimensions of the vehicle are quite impressive from a clinical point of view: 5.51 meters (18 feet) long, 2.01 meters (6.6 feet) wide and 1.78 meters (5.8 feet) high. But the idea of this land yacht piloting itself through a pedestrian- and cyclist-dense environment (it’s an autonomous concept, of course) is enough to make even the grayest city-dweller break a cold sweat.
grid view
Larger vehicles have been linked to a rise in injuries and deaths in the US, particularly in densely populated cities where vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists mingle with cars, trucks and buses. Recent studies have shown that cities with higher growth in large vehicles experienced higher rates of pedestrian fatalities.
It’s hard to say what the designers and engineers at Audi were thinking when they first sketched this idea with maximum dimensions in mind. Of course, we should take the company at its word when it says the cavernous interior “acts as a rolling lounge and mobile office, and serves as a third living space during time on the road.”
Traffic, of course, is a problem that seems to be getting worse thanks to swollen SUVs and trucks clogging the streets in ever increasing numbers. Traffic is at its core a geometry problem; The vehicles are getting bigger and bigger, while the streets remain more or less the same size. Traffic jams are unavoidable.
It’s hard to say exactly what the designers and engineers at Audi were thinking
While the words “pedestrian” or “cyclist” don’t appear in Audi’s announcement of the Urbansphere, the automaker does point out that an LED display in the vehicle’s grille can be used for “communication.” Light symbols can be used to signal intentions such as turning left or right to other road users. Illuminated “eyebrows” can be translated as blinkers and so on.
Of course, this is just a concept, and there’s no guarantee Audi will ever commit to putting the Urbansphere – or anything like it – into production. The automaker has plenty of gargantuan SUVs in its lineup, including the upcoming Q9, which is expected to go into production later this year.
Urbansphere is Audi’s third in a line of three concept cars that the German automaker said will “reinvent mobility as we know it today.” The first was the Skysphere, a sleek, rogue-looking electric convertible with an adjustable chassis. Next came the Grandsphere, a roomy electric sedan with an interior that looks like it was designed by a Kardashian.
Audi uses the term “sphere,” which is a three-dimensional representation of a ring, to describe each of these concepts – but somehow figured it only needed three concepts, rather than four, like the four rings that make up the automaker’s logo.