In most industries including automotive, the implementation of modern technologies is one of the major factors for success in highly competitive markets. Virtual reality is one of these technologies that can help auto businesses get a number of significant benefits.
Despite some rough years, the automotive industry is still one of the most important economic sectors. Car manufacturers are continuously trying to put the current technologies to use in order to deliver the best vehicles. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology is advancing rapidly as computers are becoming more powerful. The market of AR/VR has already become a billion-dollar market and it is projected to keep growing well beyond a $120 billion market within a few years.
Benefits provided by virtual reality:-
- VR enables users to interact freely with three-dimensional objects within virtual environments through special hardware like head-mounted displays (HMDs).
- This capability allows automotive companies to use the immersive technology for different purposes while saving their financial resources on manufacturing and managing physical assets.
Design and virtual prototyping:-
- Vehicle design requires continuous improvement, reviews, and testing. When working with physical mock-ups, frequent reverting to previous decisions or endless modifications, they all usually significantly raise the overall project cost. Thus, car manufacturers may spend tremendous amounts of money until a certain design, at last, will be approved.
- The design process is one of the most expensive and time-consuming stages in car manufacturing. Every time a team initiates any modifications to an existing mock-up, they have to create a new model.
- Using virtual reality, car designers can significantly cut both project cost and time by visualizing the exterior of a vehicle virtually instead of creating a new physical mock-up in 1:1 ratio each time they make some changes to a prototype. Furthermore, a design team can implement car exterior modification in real-time using virtual mock-ups.
- Virtual reality opens even broader opportunities for vehicle manufacturers. The most talented car designers from all over the world can work together on the same mock-up while physically being located on different continents.
Providing training through virtual reality:-
- Virtual reality provides wide capabilities for training engineers in the automotive industry. Most car manufacturers use an observation-based approach to train their workers to assemble particular car models.
- After these workers go through a theoretical training process, they proceed to practice under the control of experts. This is the stage where workers can make some mistakes and, as a result, cause some damage to a particular model.
- Virtual reality allows workers of automobile plants to learn in a virtual environment and safely make mistakes. VR makes the overall training process more efficient and significantly cuts the error rate.
- VR allows safely putting assembly specialists into nearly any dangerous situation and teaching them how to behave properly under stress and life threats.
Showrooms using virtual reality:-
- VR eliminates the need for renting larger areas and placing many cars in dealerships. Virtual showrooms can be easily and quickly implemented regardless of the size of a building a dealer rents.
- Audi uses the immersive VR technology in their dealerships to provide customers with a highly realistic experience of their individually customized vehicle.
- With a VR HMD, customers can individually configure their car and see every detail in a virtual environment, selecting from various equipment options. This positively influences customer shopping decisions since they can try out what they’re going to buy.
- Audi’s VR solution allows clients to virtually see their future cars in 360 degrees with both light and sound effects. Furthermore, using virtual reality they can see their customized vehicles under different conditions like time of the day.
- Virtual reality allows car dealers to show their customers the future, which makes the immersive technology a perfect marketing instrument.
Final thoughts
Virtual reality can help car manufacturer cut time-to-market and costs needed for designing and assembling vehicles. Used for training, the immersive VR technology allows car brands to greatly speed up and improve the training process and, as a result, increase their productivity.
In addition, car dealerships can increase their profits by allowing customers in virtual reality to customize their dream car and then safely test-drive it. VR also can significantly cut time-to-market for self-driving-cars by speeding up its safety system testing. In other words, the automotive industry can significantly benefit virtual reality by using this technology for a number of use cases.