Audi’s new infotainment system to feature VR experience

From June 2022, passengers in the back seat of an Audi can experience films, video games and interactive content much more realistically using virtual reality (VR) glasses.

Initiated by Audi, development of this innovative VR or XR (extended reality) technology is being advanced and commercialised for different manufacturers by the tech entertainment start-up called holoride.

The holoride technology will be introduced at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music, film and tech festival in Austin, Texas, where visitors will be able to take drives in the back seats of fully electric Audi vehicles.

Models that roll off the line with the third generation modular infotainment toolkit (MIB 3) which includes this feature are the Audi A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, Audi Q5, Q7, Q8, Audi e-tron, and Audi e-tron GT quattro.

The Audi models mentioned will be ready for holoride in the entire European market, as well as in Canada, the United States, Japan and China.

The availability of holoride itself may deviate from this depending on the individual market. The new startup technology will launch in Germany, the United Kingdom and the US market. Other markets will follow successively.

To use holoride, a virtual reality headset that has been enabled for it must be connected with the vehicle. The connection is created wirelessly via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).

Holoride was first presented at CES 2019 (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas. In cooperation with Disney Games and Interactive Experiences, holoride implemented a VR game experience from the Marvel Universe for cars.

In addition to other activities and showcases, during a roadshow through California from Los Angeles to San Francisco in the summer of 2021, holoride visited other production and game studios to demonstrate the technology’s possibilities to potential partners.

Visitors to IAA 2021 in Munich, under the fitting motto “Let’s talk about progress,” were among the first to take demo rides with holoride.

Attendees of the Salzburg Festival were also able to enjoy holoride in the back seat of an Audi e-tron and experience time travel through the musical epochs of the City of Salzburg while searching for a young Mozart.

In the future, the progressive automation of travel by car will not only make new forms of entertainment possible while driving – it will also open up increased opportunities to learn and work on the road.

When drivers also no longer have to concentrate on driving in the future, they can turn their attention to other things – work, reading, watching films, or gaming.

The motion-synchronized voyage through virtual worlds with holoride also reduces the common phenomenon of motion sickness often experienced by passengers reading a book or enjoying audio-visual media on electronic devices such as tablets.

For users, the interior will become their personal free space, and for designers, it will become the new design center.

After all, the design process begins with the question: who will be sitting in a new model and what will people want to do there?

In the future, designers will no longer design cars from the outside in, but from the inside out – and therefore customers will literally become the centre of attention.

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