NEXT16: Nils Wollny on mobile VR

What happens when you aren't driving your car? Maybe, you can be driven through a whole other reality… Audi is exploring this idea.

Warning: Liveblogging. Prone to error, inaccuracy and terrible crimes against grammar and syntax. Post will be updated over the next 48 hours.

Nils is going deeper into the extra hour – the hour freed up when we no longer have to drive our cars. Its all about the next driving experience. What happens when people aren’t driving their cars? If they drive autonomously, car concepts will change. It’s not about the product so much as the people’s experiences now.

There are estimations that VR could be $110bn business within 10 years – and that’s just the hardware. That market could be even bigger if you combine it with mobility.

The layers of reality

There’s:

  • AR: information layered over the physical
  • Mixed reality: interacting with virtual objects in physical spaces
  • Virtual reality: a complete virtual environment

But then there’s augmented virtual reality, where physical items are interacted with in virtual spaces. There’s The Void, for example.

Cars are a very, very private space. Wearing VR goggles are a scary experience – you don’t know what’s happening around you. In the car you’re in a private space – and you can add windows out to reality. For example, imagine experiencing the 15th century version of the city as you’re driven through it. You can have films or performances that you move through. We could meet, discuss – and sell – in these mobile spaces. Rather than selling driving experience, we sell experience driving…

Perhaps we’ll be less about the technology and more about the experience…

V-Mobility

The Internet of Things, VR and AI are coming together – V-mobility lives at their intersection. It sounds like science fiction right now – and it’s a way down the road. But it’s important that car manufacturers look at this – and all the possibilities.

VR is NOT scifi for us at Audi – we’re rolling out VR to our dealers, allowing people to experience their customised car before they order it. Audi is shifting to VR first.

They already have a LeMans virtual experience ready for NEXT attendees to experience today. And this is just the beginning – the first lap – of what they’re working on.