- Closing speech at the end of the Berlin Falling Walls Conference
- Audi CEO Stadler: “lacking or differing standards are a serious barrier to trade between the EU and the USA”
- Appeal: “Intelligent cars need intelligent urban infrastructures. We seek for partners who see behind the walls and who enhance quality of life, efficiency and sustainability in cities.”
On the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Audi CEO Rupert Stadler demanded, “finally tear down walls in the fields of business and politics.” In his dinner speech at the end of the Falling Walls Conference at the Brandenburg Gate, he appealed for the creation of more shared standards for the common economic area of 800 million people in the planned transatlantic trade agreement between the EU and the USA (TTIP). He stated, “This is even more important than abolishing import duties, because differing regulations make things unnecessarily complicated and expensive for our industry.” At the same time, the Audi CEO appealed to transport planners in metropolises to design their infrastructures to be just as intelligent as the cars of the future will be. This will allow space in cities to be used better and will improve the quality of life.
With regard to the free trade agreement, the Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG, Rupert Stadler, gave an example in his speech to international scientists, politicians and businesspeople: “With a car that you buy in the United States, even such details as the color of the indicator lights are prescribed differently.” Differing standards, also with regard to crash tests and emissions, “make things unnecessarily complicated and expensive for our industry.”
In his speech, Stadler referred to the presentation of the Audi Urban Future Awards on Monday. He stated that free space and free time are rare goods, especially nowadays in the world’s megacities. He pointed out that commuters on the roads of Beijing or Mexico City spend a total of one month a year in traffic jams, and that this is a waste of time, money and fuel.
According to Stadler, modern technology that makes traffic movements predictable will also allow urban space to be used better. More intelligent traffic management systems that recognize the patterns of urban life and can thus predict people’s movements will help to spread the traffic load more evenly over road networks in the future. Stadler appealed for urban infrastructures to be better connected with road users. For example, the Audi traffic-lights service “Ampelinfo online” calculates the ideal speed for “the perfect green wave.” A pilot project is taking place in Berlin in which every third set of traffic lights is already online.
Addressing the mayors of metropolises in informal discussions at the event, Audi’s CEO said: “We don’t need any new walls around our cities, but flexible and intelligent solutions; because freedom is also defined by freedom of choice.” He advocated close cooperation between individual and public transport, and demanded: “In the future, it mustn’t take more than two or three minutes to change from one means of transport to another. We will only manage to achieve this with an overall system that is completely interconnected.”
He believes that digitalization is the key to the mobility of tomorrow. Given the appropriate data security, Stadler can imagine that people will be more prepared to share with society information pertaining to their daily routines and planned journeys. This will be to the benefit of each individual. “It’s always worth tearing down a wall, when what is waiting for us behind offers more possibilities and freedom that what we already have on our side of the wall,” stated Stadler.
