According to the manufacturers' plans, driving will change significantly as a result of modern technologies.
Audi will soon be integrating virtual reality into the accessory lists of its models.
Ingolstadt / Munich - Virtual reality (VR) has already arrived in many areas of life. You wander through an area with your bulky glasses that is hundreds of kilometers away. You land a plane that doesn't even exist. Or you can train in a virtual workshop where nothing can break because everything you see and seem to touch is only available virtually as an electrically generated image. Practicing has become standard in parts of the auto industry.
But what does a person do when they sit in the back of a car with VR in front of their eyes?
He may be doing something for his health.
Because Ingolstadt developers have found out how to successfully combat the nausea that afflicts many car occupants in this way.
The start-up Holoride, an Audi spin-off, has managed to combine virtual content with sensor and navigation data already recorded by the car and to adapt the virtual content to them.
Audi division develops new software for virtual reality when driving
The idea behind it: Nausea when driving a car - like seasickness on ships - occurs when the movements that affect the body do not match what one sees. In the car, therefore, mainly on the back seats, where headrests and tinted windows make it difficult to see outside. It also often happens when you watch a video on your tablet or when children are paddling on their mobile phones.
But that's exactly where Holoride comes in: The company's software links the movements of the car with the virtual images in the glasses.
So far there have been two harmless computer games in which this is implemented.
If the driver of the car steers to the right, the virtual spaceship also makes a right turn.
If the driver stops at a traffic light, the spaceship also stops.
The landscape always adapts to the course of the road.
You can't see a roadway.
But its contour is imprinted in the virtual landscape.
As part of the IAA 2021, visitors can take over demo drives in an Audi e-tron with the system.
Audi with new Holoride software - possibly on the accessory lists from 2022
What was previously limited to computer games can in the future be extended to completely different areas. In the appropriate virtual environment, you could edit, write, read, or even watch a film - without feeling sick. Historical city tours using VR glasses in the car are also possible. This year, visitors to the Salzburg Festival were able to take a virtual journey through time to musical milestones in the history of the festival with Audi and Holoride. Historical scenes were recorded.
Before the IAA, Audi organized test drives with the Holoride system in Ingolstadt.
Conclusion of the driver who chauffeured the test subjects through the city.
His conclusion: "Even passengers who get sick easily in the car had no problems this time." Audi published information and videos on the new technology as early as 2019:
For the time being, the system is limited to the passengers.
In the long term, it could also be used from the driver's seat for office work in autonomous cars.
But that is a long way off.
The Holoride offer does not.
It should be on the Ingolstadt-based carmaker's accessory lists in 2022.
Meanwhile, the city of Munich could face restless days - massive protests are planned against the car show.
