“The future of bike safety” was how Audi had described this gathering held as part of a multiday press event* for its new Q4 e-tron, an electric SUV the company is rolling out to considerable fanfare for its next model year. While some reporters took the vehicles themselves on test-drives up the Southern California coast, a handful of us rode laps around them to test how Audi’s proposed onboard tech might protect cyclists and reduce the likelihood of a deadly crash…

It uses a system called C-V2X, or cellular vehicle-to-everything, which lets vehicles tap into a dedicated, industry-standard radio frequency to communicate with just about anything, from streetlights to rail crossings to bike computers, as long as the “everything” has a corresponding beacon installed.