Audi is giving passengers a whole new experience when traveling using a new in-car virtual reality system.
So often when auto mavens talk about a vehicle’s ride qualities, they forget that for some that concept is more about how they will be entertained than how well a vehicle corners. Audi’s got that problem licked on either count and showed off its solution at CES 2019 in Las Vegas.
Through a new subsidiary, Audi Electronics Venture GmbH, the German automaker created a start-up company, holoride GmbH, which will commercialize this virtual reality games and other technologies for entertainment using an open platform that will be made available to all carmakers and content developers in the future.
Audi is demonstrating the immersive futuristic technology with “Marvel’s Avengers: Rocket’s Rescue Run,” an in-car VR experience for backseat passengers being brought to life by Disney Games and Interactive Experiences.
Wearing VR glasses, the passenger in an Audi e-tron (combined electric power consumption in kWh/100 km (62.1 mi)*: 26.2 –22.5 (WLTP); 24.6 – 23.7 (NEFZ); combined carbon dioxide emissions in g/km (g/mi): 0) is transported into a fantastical depiction of outer space.
(Audi taps Iron Man to unveil new e-Tron. Click Here for the story.)
The Audi e-tron now functions as the ship manned by the Guardians of the Galaxy, as the passenger makes their way through an asteroid field together with Rocket, a character that will appear in Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame in spring 2019.
Every movement of the car is reflected in the experience in real time. If the car turns a tight corner, the player curves around an opposing spaceship in virtual reality. If the Audi e-tron accelerates, the ship in the experience does the same.