Audi’s GLOSA system will tell you how fast to drive to avoid red lights

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If you’ve ever felt like a superhero because you caught a string of traffic lights that were on green, Audi wants you to feel like that every day.

Some Audi models from 2017 and 2018 already have a nifty inbuilt feature which receives information on how long a red light has left before it turns green. Now that tech is getting supercharged, with a new mouthful of a feature, the Green Light Optimized Speed Advisory, or GLOSA.

Here’s how it works

It’s pretty simple, the GLOSA system will show a recommended speed on the screen behind the steering wheel. That speed figure is based on the traffic light timings, the distance to stop, and the current speed limit. If followed, your days of getting to a light just as it turns red should be over, as the system is designed to let you coast through green lights so you don’t get irritated with stop-start traffic.

Sure, it won’t do anything about the other yahoos on the road (although I’d posit that if you own an Audi, you are one of the yahoos) but it should ease some of the pain of city driving. With the two functions working in concert, you’ll either never have to stop at a red light again or even if you do, you’ll know exactly how long you’ll be waiting for.

The system was first rolled out in Las Vegas in 2016, slowly trucking its way across the nation to now be available in more than a dozen cities, including Houston, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, northern Virginia, and Denver. Let’s hope it doesn’t get abused by drivers that just want to speed through the city like Speed Racer.

I wonder if the GLOSA system enables the Audi/Disney partnership for in-car VR experiences to be more dynamic. I can see the utility of being able to drive in a straight line for long periods when you’re trying to portray starfighter motion.

What do you think? Is this system a good idea? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.