Audi's S3 Sportback Gets Support for 4G LTE

You've probably heard a lot about LTE over the last year. Maybe you even have a smartphone with support for the LTE standard. But what about your car? Don't laugh. That day might not be all that far off.

Audi this week became the first company to bring LTE to cars. The German car manufacturer will integrate LTE support into its S3 Sportback. Customers will need get a SIM card with a data plan for their car, but once they do that, they'll be able to get on their car's WLAN hotspot and surf the web via their phone or tablet. Get a generous enough data plan and passengers can stream video while you drive. Drivers will be able to access services like Google Earth and Google Street View as well as stream music via internet radio and access online traffic data via Audi Connect. What's more, Audi is offering text-to-speech functionality for sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as for email and SMS.

LTE will be available in the Audi S3 Sportback from July and all other variants of the A3 family from November, though it's not immediately clear if this is a Germany-only option for now.

  • g-unit1111
    Last thing we need is people streaming Netflix while driving. As if there aren't enough distractions on the road already!
    Reply
  • COLGeek
    To quote the movie "The Sixth Sense", "I see dead people".

    Please, don't surf the 'Net and drive.
    Reply
  • midnightgun
    Ummm... Audi has had a similar option in their cars for awhile now. You can insert a sim card and get internet access that you can share across devices in the car and google maps/poi on the in car display. The only new thing about this is the LTE part I think.
    Reply