• The brand’s new phygital experience elevates the emotion of driving the CUPRA UrbanRebel Racing Concept with the use of a virtual reality headset, breaking down the barrier between the tangible and the digital
• During development, the biggest challenge was to decrease latency; the headset and the car must be perfectly tracked so that the driver’s sensations match the images they see
• A team of more than 35 people spent a year and a half developing and testing it, with the collaboration of CUPRA drivers Adrien Tambay and Jordi Gené

On the tarmac of the track at the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin (Germany), Klara Andersson straps herself in the CUPRA UrbanRebel Racing Concept. The CUPRA driver puts on a virtual reality headset and enters the digital world as soon as she presses the accelerator, taking emotion to another exponential level: “It’s mind-blowing! I race cars for a living, but doing it in the virtual world is a whole new sensation. I just want jump into the car again!” exclaims Klara. This is how CUPRA accomplished the first phygital electric driving concept, the Exponential Experience. 

Where boundaries are blurred. “It isn’t enough for us at CUPRA to just tell stories, we want to live them, and that’s why we’re moving from storytelling to storyliving” explains CUPRA COO Sven Schuwirth. “We wanted to explore the merging of the physical and the virtual worlds in the field of racing, a sport in which CUPRA can go all out, with the ambition of continuing to engage with Generation Z” adds Xavi Serra, head of CUPRA Racing. This is how the idea of creating the Exponential Experience came about, delivering all the thrill of driving to the maximum extent. “And the CUPRA UrbanRebel Racing Concept was the ideal model to do it with, as it’s the ultimate expression of gamification” Xavi points out.

From videogames to the circuit. To turn this unconventional challenger idea into a reality, a team of more than 35 people, between CUPRA designers, engineers and drivers, spent a year and a half planning, developing and testing the experience, together with their partners at Breach. It was a bold challenge for this Norwegian company specialising in the visual design of videogames: “We’d never come across a proposal like the one CUPRA made us, and it was an opportunity we couldn’t turn down” says Andreas Weibye, software developer at Breach. He adds: “Developing virtual reality in a moving car isn’t something you do every day” but perseverance paid off “and we’re extremely proud of the result.”

A challenging race. The biggest challenge of the Exponential Experience is dealing with latency, the time between stimulus input and response, as two variables come into play - tracking the car’s movement and at the same time the movements of the driver’s head. “Every millisecond counts, and we have to make sure that the car and the headset are precisely tracked to have their real position and orientation at any time” explains Ivan Valencia, CUPRA’s Project Leader of the Exponential Experience. That’s why CUPRA developed an IT structure with sensors, several safety functions, a two-way communication with the vehicle’s electronics. “It’s very important that whoever gets behind the wheel can feel that the sensations they’re experiencing match the pace of the images they’re seeing” he adds.

A future without limits. Countless tests were carried out during the development of the project at the CUPRA facilities in Martorell and closed areas at the Girona Airport, until it could be enjoyed for the first time last April at Tempelhof Airport during the Exponential Impulse Event in Berlin. “In total, more than 500 kilometres were covered in the testing phase, and a large volume of data was processed” says Xavi. And among those chosen to test the experience were CUPRA drivers Adrien Tambay and Jordi Gené, who also participated in the development, CUPRA CEO Wayne Griffiths, brand ambassadors such as FC Barcelona football players Marc ter Stegen and Ansu Fati, and racing driver Klara Andersson, who said “it opens the door to a future without limits.” Xavi Serra concludes: “With the Exponential Experience, a length of asphalt can become anything we want, the only limit is our imagination.” To further push the boundaries of the physical world, the Exponential Experience can be experienced again shortly during the IAA Mobility 2023 in Munich, in a reserved space near the airport. 

CUPRA HQ Communications

Rocío Soria
Content Generation
M/ +34 689 28 14 32
rocio.soria@seat.es

Gemma Solà
Content Manager & SM Communications
M/ + 34 639 944 087
gemma.sola@seat.es

Fermín Robles 
Social Content & Digital Platforms
M/ +34 638 77 20 84
fermin.robles@seat.es