Photo: Audi
Three major automotive brands battle for supremacy as we speak, not only in Europe, but across the world. Audi, BMW and Mercedes – each with its own formula and yet somehow producing closely matched cars. One thing they all share is an affinity for design and technology, which in recent years have combined to give us the LED headlight.
Of the three, Audi has always been the more practical and reasonable. But today, we saw a totally different side to the brand with four rings. A facelift for the A7 five-door coupe was revealed today and the biggest cosmetic change is a set of standard LED headlights, optionally available with Matrix anti-glare technology. The old standard system came with Xenon lighting and to understand why the switch matters, we need only look at the competition.
On a BMW 6 Series, which starts at over €70,000, adaptive LED headlights are a €2,200 option, with another €210 for the LED fog lights. Remember, the new A7 will start at just over €52,000 in Germany.
We're not comparing the cars directly, just showing you Audi's willingness to adapt to customer's requirements. Because let's face it – everybody wants LEDs. It's just a question of how much you pay for them. We reached out to Audi and asked them about their change. Here's how standard LEDs were justified:
The Audi A7 Sportback represents prestige and stylistic elegance. Audi offers with the new A7 LED headlights as standard and Matrix LED as option. This was a decision, in line with the positioning of the A7 Sportback within our model line.
Of course, the A7 is their biggest and most impressive coupe, but that's not the point. We've long suspected that LEDs will become standard on most cars by the end of the decade. It's even trickling down to simple compact cars like the SEAT Leon. With the A7, Audi is almost saying "look, we might as well start now, because it's going to happen eventually."
Matrix LED was first seen last year, when the A8 flagship sedan received its own facelift. Since then, Audi has created a new design of headlight for the A7. The cluster on the five-door coupe was already smaller than on the A8 and now it's almost been cut in half by two strips of daytime running lights. The whole system looks like a halfway point between the A8 and the new TT coupe that's also coming out in 2014.
Whilst using the same technological basis, the Matrix-LED headlights have been adapted to best fit the design of the Audi A7 Sportback.
Headlights are becoming so much more than just illumination systems. They are sculptural design elements, focal points of the car without with it would lose the premium feel. Audi's design seems to focus around perfectly straight, clean lines or parallel geometric shapes.
The brand with four rings has naturally developed a specific "customer" who's attracted by simplicity. You can see it's trickling down to other elements like the thinly spoked wheels they just launched and a new exhaust design, which is now integrated as standard into the rear valance. Anybody who still remembers old A6s with exhaust "tubes" sticking out the bottom will surely appreciate this.
It would have been nice to see a different type of exhaust on the new S7 as well, but the quad tip format is so famous it didn't require an upgrade. Maybe there's a way for it to "melt" into something else, but the time for that isn't now.
The A7 Sportback and S7 Sportback have been made even more attractive, more powerful, more efficient. We focus on that for the moment and wish not to speculate on what could come in the future.
On a BMW 6 Series, which starts at over €70,000, adaptive LED headlights are a €2,200 option, with another €210 for the LED fog lights. Remember, the new A7 will start at just over €52,000 in Germany.
We're not comparing the cars directly, just showing you Audi's willingness to adapt to customer's requirements. Because let's face it – everybody wants LEDs. It's just a question of how much you pay for them. We reached out to Audi and asked them about their change. Here's how standard LEDs were justified:
The Audi A7 Sportback represents prestige and stylistic elegance. Audi offers with the new A7 LED headlights as standard and Matrix LED as option. This was a decision, in line with the positioning of the A7 Sportback within our model line.
Matrix LED was first seen last year, when the A8 flagship sedan received its own facelift. Since then, Audi has created a new design of headlight for the A7. The cluster on the five-door coupe was already smaller than on the A8 and now it's almost been cut in half by two strips of daytime running lights. The whole system looks like a halfway point between the A8 and the new TT coupe that's also coming out in 2014.
Whilst using the same technological basis, the Matrix-LED headlights have been adapted to best fit the design of the Audi A7 Sportback.
Headlights are becoming so much more than just illumination systems. They are sculptural design elements, focal points of the car without with it would lose the premium feel. Audi's design seems to focus around perfectly straight, clean lines or parallel geometric shapes.
The brand with four rings has naturally developed a specific "customer" who's attracted by simplicity. You can see it's trickling down to other elements like the thinly spoked wheels they just launched and a new exhaust design, which is now integrated as standard into the rear valance. Anybody who still remembers old A6s with exhaust "tubes" sticking out the bottom will surely appreciate this.
It would have been nice to see a different type of exhaust on the new S7 as well, but the quad tip format is so famous it didn't require an upgrade. Maybe there's a way for it to "melt" into something else, but the time for that isn't now.
The A7 Sportback and S7 Sportback have been made even more attractive, more powerful, more efficient. We focus on that for the moment and wish not to speculate on what could come in the future.
Google News