Audi extends 'time to green' support to Washington DC

Seeing a countdown to a green light is apparently the only feature to have yet emerged from the range of once-ballyhooed \"vehicle-to-infrastructure\" technology.

Audi has extended its traffic light information (TLI) feature to Washington DC.

The vehicle-to-infrastructure system provides a "time to green" countdown, enabling drivers to glance at their instrument cluster and determine how many seconds are left before their light turns from red to green.

Originally rolled out in Las Vegas in 2016, the feature is now supported at 1,600 intersections in eight cities across the United States.

"Not only do V2I technologies like Traffic Light Information help to reduce driver stress, they are also essential infrastructure developments as we continue toward an automated future," says Audi of America president Scott Keogh.

With over 300,000 traffic signals estimated to be spread across the entire country, Audi's slow rollout highlights the challenge in waiting for necessary infrastructure upgrades to support such features. In the many years since automakers began talking of V2V and V2I technology, the market has since turned toward semi-autonomous and fully self-driving systems that arguably obviate the benefits of wireless communication between cars and traffic control systems.