Audi's Head of Electronics Ricky Hudi, says that the upcoming 2017 A8 Saloon car will sport several new technologies - including OLED lighting. Or at least the company is "working on the integration of OLEDs" for the 2017 flagship model.
Audi OLED lighting concept, 2012
Audi has been playing with OLED technologies for a long time. Back in 2012 they unveiled three new OLED lighting designs, and in 2013 they unveiled 3D OLED lighting taillight prototypes (developed with Philips and Merck). In 2012 Audi also installed AMOLED digital rear view "mirrors" in their R18 sports prototype cars. It'll be interesting to see if the upcoming A8 will use one of these designs.
Audi is also interested in flexible OLED displays. The company's latest concept, the Prologue, used bendable OLED mounted at the case of the centre console. The prototype display was made by Samsung Display, and is 8.9 x 5.6 inch in size (226.56 x 141.6 mm) and features a resolution of 2560x1600 (287 PPI). Audi says that there are only 10 such displays in existence today, this is a very early sample from Samsung. Maybe the new A8 will also adopt a new OLED display for its interior.
If Audi actually adopts OLED lighting - this will probably be the first car on the market with the new lighting technology. Unless BMW beats them to it.
