The future of the car is about you not you driving you or your passengers. It will be about luxury, comfort, and assistive technology. That is if you can afford it. For now, Audi will reveal a concept preview of what will morph into a successor to the A8. The Audi Grand Sphere concept will be revealed at the Munich Motor Show on 2 September. The show-stopping feature of the Grand Sphere is the fold-away steering wheel and pedals. This indicates a fully autonomous driving feature. But if the Grand Sphere does launch as expected in 2024, a fully autonomous Level 5 vehicle is still a few years further away from becoming a reality.

Preview images of the Audi Grand Sphere Concept reveal suicide doors in addition to infotainment and switch-gear-free dashboard which indicates the future car interior will have primary features commanded by voice control. Grand Sphere development began under the codename of Landjet, a reference to the luxury offered by private jets. Project Landjet was conceived as a direct rival to the Mercedes EQS.

While Grand Sphere is a successor to the Audi A8 it will not be called the A9. Audi will instead introduce a new naming convention because the production version is expected to be so radically different. The platform developed for the Grand Sphere will eventually be used by Volkwagen’s entire automotive product portfolio.