Over the course of 2 years, together with the engineers at CUPRA Racing, we have collaborated with professional drivers, game developers, and XR specialists to create the first ever VR driving platform that actually works under racing conditions.

The 320kW CUPRA UrbanRebel racing concept car served as the platform for the technology. Instead of "bolting on" VR as many have tried in the past, the car was rewired and physically modified with new sensors and interfaces.

To achieve the near-instant responsiveness, the team developed innovations that fed data from sensor fusion (combining data from multiple sources including GPS, inertial sensors, and vehicle data) into predictive algorithms that calculate where the car is going to be 30 to 50 milliseconds in the future.

The onboard gaming computer was connected to the car's interface (CAN bus) to physically control the vehicle, a world first enabled by the total integration of the UrbanRebel.

We developed the world's first gamified racing experience that allows you to drive a real car through a gamified virtual world.

First, we took an electric concept race car and modified it with an array of sensors, and a custom machined computer chassis to overcome heat and vibration issues. Then, we overcame the impossible challenges of tracking, latency and headset drift to achieve a race-quality responsiveness.

Finally, we did the unthinkable. The game engine can physically control the car, which enables gamification and our "Guardian" geofenced safety solution.

The result of this innovation is a technology that becomes invisible as the driver is transported to another world.

If you can control what a person sees, and what they feel, you can stretch and amplify their perception of reality. From the perspective of the motorsport industry, the biggest opportunity comes from being able to host multi-driver races in compact spaces.

The Exponential Experience is a testbed technology. Developed in active collaboration with professional drivers and partners from within the automotive and motorsport industry, the result was an overwhelming success.

Debuted to the public at the 2023 Berlin Formula E event, drivers, engineers, and journalists joined executives from CUPRA, Porsche, and Formula E in putting the Exponential Experience to the test.

After finishing his demo drive, Alejandro Agag, the Chairman and founder of Formula E declared that the technology is set to unlock "millions of new possibilities".

The expectation and ambition was never to replace traditional racing, but to unlock a totally innovative experience that could move from PCs to race cars. Scalable, interactive, streamer friendly, and multi-user.

CUPRA and partners are now funding and building a new racing format that builds on the technology and learnings of the Exponential Experience.

Guardian Zone

Three stage geofenced safety system triggers warning, switches headset to passthrough mode, then shuts down the car if driver leaves safe area. Co-driver as failsafe backup.

Fusion Tracking

The exact position and pose of the vehicle are determined to within 5 cm accuracy by fusing data from multiple GPS sensors, inertial sensors, and car data such as speed and steering wheel position.

Race-Ready Responsiveness

Even 100ms of perceived delay would destroy the experience. We achieved zero perceived delay (confirmed by professional drivers) by predicting where the car will be in the future to offset the rendering time of the computer.

Optical Drift Compensation

VR headsets use inertial sensors which do not work in a moving vehicle. The g-forces created by acceleration and braking cause the user's viewpoint to "drift" causing nausea and disorientation. We replaced the inertial sensors with an array of optical sensors. Combined with sensor fusion, we achieved perfect headset tracking under heavy g-force conditions.

CUPRA RealityLoop

The final piece of the puzzle was enabling the game engine (Unity) to control the vehicle. This unlocked gamification features like boosts that physically increase torque to the car and penalties for colliding with virtual barriers.