According to the patent filed with the German Patent and Trademark Office discovered by CarMoses, Audi wants to use several features already found in luxury cars to mimic the sauna experience. The intention is not to replace regular saunas, but rather to enhance the experience before and after drivers visit their local sauna.
To prepare the driver and or passenger, Audi will use the climate control, seat heating and ventilation, ambient lighting, and the car’s navigation and connectivity features.
Germany is one of the healthiest nations on earth, and part of their strict wellness routine is a regular trip to the sauna. It’s widely believed that saunas relieve aches and pains, improve the function of the cardiovascular system, and increase relaxation, which is exactly what you want from a luxury car. After all, Mercedes-Benz once conducted a study and found that a person’s heart beats slower in an S-Class than any of its rivals.
How It Works
There are two methods the car can use to detect when its owner is going to the local sauna. The most basic is navigation. If the car knows it’s on the way to a sauna, it can engage Sauna Mode (not the term Audi uses) when the time is right. The second method is more complex and requires the car to have access to the sauna facility’s servers.
By allowing the car to communicate with the facility, it will know exactly what its owners’ preferences are. The same method is then applied when the owner’s sauna experience is finished. The car either picks up that it’s moving away from the sauna, or the facility lets the car know that the experience is finished and that it should engage the winding down experience.
The parameters are not important. Some people like to go into a sauna with their bodies at ambient temperature, while others prefer to be preheated or cooled down a bit. The climate control will take care of that part, while the ambient lighting will set the mood.
Audi AG specifically mentions the color red in the patent application, which is an obvious reference to heat. But the interior lights could also be programmed to turn blue after the sauna experience to help the owner’s body cool down again.
Why It Matters
This feature will likely only be available for fully autonomous vehicles. The patent application mentions the owner having a sleep before and after to enhance the experience, suggesting that the car will handle everything else after you’ve finished sweating it out.
Audi has obviously looked at the countries that take saunas the most, and realized that it plays a big role in both health and luxury. Finland, for example, has 3.2 million active sauna locations. In most of northern Europe and Russia, saunas are as common as grocery stores, and it has great cultural significance. North Americans are also big fans, though people in the southern hemisphere are not as interested.
It would be a nice feature to include as an option in an autonomous vehicle, and it would be easy to implement because all of the features required are already in place. All that’s needed is a few lines of code, and a towel in the glove compartment for the sweat.
