That traffic light game you play with your kids is going to get a lot more interesting if you have an Audi. Audi’s Traffic Light Information technology, which lets the car “talk” with nearby traffic lights and informs drivers of when the light is about to turn green, launched in Las Vegas this month.
Called Vehicle-to-Infrastructure, the feature comes only with certain 2017 Audi A4 and Q7 allroad models. The car “receives real-time signal information” from the traffic management system that governs traffic lights through the onboard 4G LTE connection.
With Las Vegas being the first U.S. city to implement V2I, Audi says that it will continue working with other cities in the hopes that it can expand the places where the technology can be used.
Further down the line, Audi says that it hopes to use traffic management systems in conjunction with start/stop features, navigation systems and “speed recommendation designed to maximize the number of green lights one can make in sequence.”
Which is—by the way—one of my favorite games in the whole world. When I make all the green lights in a row, I think of buying myself a lottery ticket. I never do. Because nothing in life works out as it does in a Las Vegas commercial.