Smiling, Ellada Kaufhold talks about her childhood, when she wasn’t always the easiest passenger for her parents. “I was pretty impatient in the back seat. Even on the shortest of journeys, I often couldn’t stop myself from asking, ‘Are we there yet?’” Opting for a book or a smartphone wasn’t really an option: “I couldn’t read or watch videos without getting car sick,” Kaufhold explains.

Today, when she travels in the back seat of a holoride equipped Audi, she no longer has this problem thanks to VR technology. Holoride is a tech start-up co-founded by Audi that uses virtual reality to turn car rides into an experience – putting a stop to boredom and motion sickness. “Holoride adapts the VR content to the car’s movements, giving passengers the feeling of being completely immersed in a virtual reality,” elaborates Kaufhold, who is responsible for holoride’s content as Service Owner at Audi. “Provided the Audi model comes with the necessary interface,” she adds, explaining that this is the case with more and more vehicles on the market. The necessary equipment, consisting of VR glasses and a controller, can be ordered directly via holoride or the Audi partner in Germany and Austria (other markets to follow).

By combining the car’s movements with XR technology – an umbrella term including virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) – holoride creates a digital adventure inside the vehicle. Holoride calls this principle Elastic Content: The real-time movement data of the vehicle, every steering, acceleration and braking manoeuvre, harmonises with the content consumed via the VR glasses. “This can be a skill game, a movie or even educational content,” Kaufhold explains.

Currently, holoride offers ten games for entertainment and edutainment, i.e. educational content in entertainment format. Ellada Kaufhold compares it to an exciting roller coaster ride. “With holoride, we are turning vehicles into moving theme parks,” she enthuses. An avid driver herself, Kaufhold also loves to switch to the back seat occasionally to check out holoride’s content and to relax. However, she prefers to stream movies or series via the holoride app. “In addition to the smartphone mirroring function¹, which allows you to access content on YouTube or from social media platforms, for example, there will be expanded and exciting features for streaming video content in the future,” Kaufhold adds. “I absolutely love that you can consume interactive and passive content. Such content is particularly in demand in Asia, where people traditionally travel more in the back seat,” she explains, highlighting the option of meditation and relaxation exercises. “Mindfulness is another field that we are bringing to life with holoride.” The Motorverse, as holoride calls the cosmos that is being expanded piece by piece and from which users can choose their preferred content, is a fascinating promise, according Kaufhold. Holoride provides new content on a regular basis.

And as individual mobility continues to develop, Kaufhold adds, the possibilities that Audi can offer with holoride can also very well expand. By this, she means the opportunities that future developments in automated driving will bring. “But until that happens,” Kaufhold goes on to say, “you just relax in the back seat and immerse yourself in the content you want – a great remedy for car sickness.”