Who among us hasn’t felt the urge to spice up a road trip with the uncertainty of proprioception dislocation? Audi plans to offer just that, by offering support for Holoride in-car virtual reality in some models before the end of this year.
That’s right. Your kids will soon compound carsickness and simulation sickness on the back seat of your R450,000 family car. Or you can make a passenger hurl by taking corners sideways in an R8 as they experience a rollercoaster in VR.
Holoride or die
Holoride (which the company likes to spell ‘holoride’) is an in-car specific virtual reality tech that promises to make driving more entertaining. It turns them into “…hyper-immersive experiences by combining navigational and car data with XR”. It’s also supposed to be less prone to hurling, because it operates based on the car’s motions. Proprioception… shouldn’t be a problem. Audi, it seems, is building support for this into a batch of its vehicles.
Those vehicles are the Audi A4, A6, A7, A8, Q5, Q7, Q8 as well as the e-tron and e-tron GT. Basically, cars featuring the company’s MIB 3 infotainment system. But before you get too excited (or worried), only the rear seats will support virtual reality. If you see a driver wearing a pair of oversized VR specs, then you can panic. But it won’t be Audi’s fault.
Still, if you’re interested in experiencing Holoride while you ride (there’s a Xzibit joke in there somewhere), you don’t have long to wait. Support for the feature turns up first in Europe, Japan, Canada, China, and the States. But that does rather hinge on the VR tech rolling out in those regions. Holoride will launch in the UK, US, and Germany first, with other countries following later.
