Preview

The sexiest new gear in the world, including Audi’s crazy hydrogen hybrid, and the latest

Fitbit activity tracker

Ooh, what’s this very yellow motor all about, then?

Why, it’s Audi’s brand-new concept SUV, announced at the recent North American International Auto Show. And guess what… it runs on hydrogen!

Hydrogen, huh?

Yep. Drive comes from electric motors sitting at each axle, but these are powered by a hydrogen fuel cell rather than electricity. There’s also a 60kg lithium-ion battery that sits on the h-tron’s floor.

So how many miles can it go?

The car will go 372 miles before you need to top up the hydrogen tanks, and you can fully refuel in four minutes.

And how fast does it go?

The fuel cell generates 148bhp, but with the lithium battery it spits out 282bhp. Audi reckons the car will smash 0-62 in less than seven seconds and achieve a maximum speed of 124mph.

Is there any other cool tech on board?

There’s shed-loads of it, including curved screens, a solar roof to further increase efficiency (Audi claims it could recoup 621 miles of range each year) and, of course, a plethora of autonomous driving features. Neat, huh?

So the car can drive itself?

Up to a point. The car’s sensors (you’ll notice there are no mirrors) talk to the zFAS – the car’s ‘brain’ – which then computes a complete model of its surroundings in real time. It makes this info available to the assistance and piloted driving systems – so the car can drive itself up to around 40mph. And it can park itself.

Sounds cool. When will it be released?

We don’t know yet, but Audi says the autonomous tech will be in the 2017 A8.