Audi shows VR tech at CES

The days when carmakers did cars and nowt else are long dead. Exhibit 279: Audi’s foray into the world of virtual reality. 

It’s the co-founder of a company called holoride, which has developed technology that mirrors the movements of a real car in real-time VR. 

Audi’s showing off the tech’ at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas using an adapted e-Tron and an ‘experience’ called “Marvel’s Avengers: Rocket’s Rescue Run”. 

You’re sat in the back of the car and given a typical VR headset. The tech adapts the virtual content to the car’s movements in real time – so if the e-Tron’s driver makes a sharp right, in VR you swerve right around a spaceship. If the e-Tron accelerates, so does the VR you. Et cetera. 

Holoride says it’s planning to launch this “new form of entertainment” in the next three years for backseat passengers, using typical VR goggles. And it’s going open-platform, so any carmaker or content creator can use it. 

“From arcade games, underwater adventures and space exploration to educational trips through historical cities or the human bloodstream, there are almost no limits to what is possible” says the company.