Back in the fall of 2018, my wife (German in nature) decided it was new car time....spending several weeks reviewing models, and eventually selected the Audi A5. Then came the entire weekend where options were reviewed, and they posed various questions.
So she called the Audi 'rep' and had a 40-minute discussion over options. Unlike the BMW Mini....which only has around a dozen options....the A5 has probably fifty-odd options.
One of those selected was Audi Pre-sense. The explanation didn't really go into depth. The guy hinted it was a good safety feature.
The car was ordered, and we journeyed to the factory to pick it up seven months later (yeah, it took a while). There...a kind Audi lady sat in the car and explained about seventy-five different things that you really needed to know. The Pre-sense came and went...neither the wife or I really could grasp this.
I've probably driven the car about 200 times since day one, and Pre-sense never came on a single time.....until this week.
Driving through some back streets of Wiesbaden.....a guy was crossing the street, and he was probably about a foot out of my path of the car. The Audi did some alarm-like sound....brakes got applied (not by my foot) and I could feel the safety belt tighten up a couple of notches.
What the hell happened?
Well...the display said 'proudly' that Pre-sense had come on. The car felt fairly proud about that fact....like a Trump 'pat-on-the-back'.
I had to come home and review the documentation.
Well....so Audi spent years designing Pre-sense. Basically, with all the sensors and computer action....it will determine crash potential, and activate....without warning you.
Yeah, it's like one of those Star Trek advanced vessels where the AI cranks up and saves the crew.
Did the wife know of this capability? She says no.
The thing that bothers me here....if the car suddenly picked up movement....like a squirrel or bird about to impact....it'd have to turn on the brakes, and you might end up in a pretty harsh accident and no way to explain to the cops that you were going to intentionally hit the damn squirrel, but Pre-sense stopped you.
Yeah....I long for the old Oldsmobile's of the 1990s, and the simplicity of driving. I'm not sure I can handle Pre-sense now.
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