After years of not taking technology particularly seriously, it seems car manufacturers have finally woken up to the potential of the hi-tech automobile. And while the Google self-driving car has grabbed all the headlines the truth is virtually every new car has some level of automation to make our lives easier – and potentially safer.

Last week I test drove the latest Audi A4 which has both safety features to avoid obstacles in the road – including pedestrians and obstacles – as well as state of the art information and entertainment features. Smart phone integration is becoming particularly important it seems so that our text messages can be read out to us as we drive and so we can access music from Spotify and from our devices too.

This week I will also pay a visit to Renningen in Germany to check out Bosch’s R&D facilities. Here some of the latest connected car technologies will be revealed to international press for the very first time. Full report to follow on Tech Digest later this week.