In Audi’s first big event at CES, chairman Rupert Stadler said at a Thursday keynote that the company will lead the automotive industry toward a future of Internet-connected cars with the best of infotainment and driver assistance.

“Customers are demanding all that the Internet has to offer, and they expect it in all of their devices, all the time,” Stadler said.

But bolting existing technologies into Audi vehicles is not the answer for the future of connected cars, Stadler said … especially since entertainment devices are designed to capture a user’s attention, when in an automobile you need them to do exactly the opposite.

Audi’s new E-Solutions division is working to create integrated services that provide information and entertainment without distracting drivers from the road. These include Heads-Up Displays (HUD) with laser-projected augmented reality to improve driver safety in low visibilty, and front- and rear-mounted radar to detect potential impacts, alert drivers, and prime safety systems for impact. Their new touchpad can recognize characters in multiple languages, and the multimedia interface (MMI) will use Google speech technology for voice recognition and destination search.

Stadler and NVIDIA founder Jensen Heung previewed the future “digital cockpit” instrument cluster that will run on NVIDIA’s newly-announced Tegra 2 processor. The display demo showed crystal-clear, 60-frames-per-second, 3D graphics, which Stadler said provide drivers greater readability with fewer attention demands than 2D.

The Audi booth in North Hall showcases the e-tron series of electric and hybrid cars.