Virtual Reality in the Automotive Industry: Market, Adoption, Use Cases

Virtual Reality (VR) in the Automotive Industry – Overview

ScienceSoft leverages 33-year experience in developing immersive software and 14 years in the automotive industry to provide dedicated VR consulting and VR app development services.

Virtual Reality in the Automotive Industry: Market Summary

Virtual reality software allows reducing the costs of R&D and manufacturing, increasing sales, and minimizing driving risks by moving prototyping, showcasing, and test driving to the virtual realm. In 2019, the global VR market in the automotive industry accounted for $759.3 million and is forecasted to grow up to $14,727.9 million by 2027 at a CAGR of 45.1%.

VR Adoption in the Automotive Industry

North America is the biggest shareholder of the global automotive VR market. While Tesla advertises its cars by offering customers virtual rides, Ford Motor Company develops a VR training tool for polishing the skills of its technicians. Germany continues to be the leading automotive VR adopter in Europe, with Volkswagen reducing design costs via virtual prototyping, BMW increasing sales thanks to immersive showrooms, and Audi enhancing the safety of self-driving cars manufacturing by performing testing in virtual reality.

The key drivers of the increasing automotive VR popularity are technological advancement and the need to reduce engineering costs.

Automotive VR Software Architecture

The architecture of VR applications in the automotive industry varies depending on the application type. Yet in all cases, the VR solution architecture includes the following 3 components:

A client VR application

with modules responsible for processing input, generating output, building 3D models of cars and applying the laws of physics to their surfaces, as well as running interaction scenarios.

A database

that stores 3D car models, VR interaction scenarios, and user data.

A web administration panel

which allows access to the content in the database and thus, data modification in the client app.

Automotive VR software architecture - ScienceSoft

VR for Vehicle Prototyping

With VR, there’s no need to spend time and effort on the complicated process of building bulky physical prototypes. Virtual prototyping also simplifies research and development, speeds up the design process, and reduces the number of adjustment rounds, thus significantly cutting the costs on the entire pre-manufacturing cycle.

How VR for vehicle prototyping works: When full-scale 3D samples of vehicle parts or complete vehicle models are placed in the virtual reality, designers can easily manipulate them and quickly tweak according to safety regulations, design requirements, or stakeholders’ requests.

Use cases:

  • Pre-manufacturing design and approval.
  • Virtual testing of self-driving car prototypes.

VR for Training in the Automotive Industry

Virtual reality training software is useful for both manufacturing and after-sales. It can be a part of original equipment manufacturers’ corporate training programs to ensure quick onboarding and proficiency matching a brand image. VR training can also be an offer to potential car buyers, who would appreciate effective and safe VR driving lessons on specific car models (e.g., autonomous cars).

How VR for training works: A user can drive or perform maintenance on a virtual vehicle just like they would do with a physical one – save for the risks of causing any damage to both humans and vehicles. To ensure better results, the VR app can include textual, visual, and audio guidance.

Use cases:

  • Technician training.
  • Vehicle operation learning.

VR for Auto Showrooms

Virtual reality technology can become a sales-boosting mechanism for car manufacturers and dealers. They have the opportunity to raise online sales via virtual showrooms, where potential customers will inspect 3D cars’ exterior and interior and have a test drive – all without leaving their homes.

How VR immersive showrooms work: A showcased virtual car is a complete and detailed replica of the physical model. Still, a customer can easily modify certain elements – e.g., the color of exterior or the material of interior – to understand what combination or variant they like best.

Use cases:

  • Remote immersive tours.
  • Virtual test drive.

Interested in Automotive VR Capabilities?

Combining profound knowledge of the automotive industry with the 26 year-long experience in 3D modeling, ScienceSoft is ready to build your unique automotive VR app.

VR engine

3D modeling

Simulation modeling

Cloud databases, warehouses and storage

AWS

Amazon Redshift

We use Amazon Redshift to build cost-effective data warehouses that easily handle complex queries and large amounts of data.

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Amazon DynamoDB

We use Amazon DynamoDB as a NoSQL database service for solutions that require low latency, high scalability and always available data.

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Azure

Azure Cosmos DB

We leverage Azure Cosmos DB to implement a multi-model, globally distributed, elastic NoSQL database on the cloud. Our team used Cosmos DB in a connected car solution for one of the world’s technology leaders.

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Azure SQL Database

Azure SQL Database is great for handling large volumes of data and varying database traffic: it easily scales up and down without any downtime or disruption to the applications. It also offers automatic backups and point-in-time recoveries to protect databases from accidental corruption or deletion.

Google Cloud Platform

Google Cloud Datastore

We use Google Cloud Datastore to set up a highly scalable and cost-effective solution for storing and managing NoSQL data structures. This database can be easily integrated with other Google Cloud services (BigQuery, Kubernetes, and many more).

Back-end programming languages

Microsoft .NET

Practice

19 years

Projects

200+

Workforce

60+

Our .NET developers can build sustainable and high-performing apps up to 2x faster due to outstanding .NET proficiency and high productivity.

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Java

Practice

25 years

Projects

110+

Workforce

40+

ScienceSoft's Java developers build secure, resilient and efficient cloud-native and cloud-only software of any complexity and successfully modernize legacy software solutions.

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Python

Practice

10 years

Projects

50+

Workforce

30

ScienceSoft's Python developers and data scientists excel at building general-purpose Python apps, big data and IoT platforms, AI and ML-based apps, and BI solutions.

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Node.js

Practice

10 years

Workforce

100

ScienceSoft delivers cloud-native, real-time web and mobile apps, web servers, and custom APIs ~1.5–2x faster than other software developers.

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PHP

Practice

16 years

Projects

170

Workforce

55

ScienceSoft's PHP developers helped to build Viber. Their recent projects: an IoT fleet management solution used by 2,000+ corporate clients and an award-winning remote patient monitoring solution.

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Golang

Practice

4 years

ScienceSoft's developers use Go to build robust cloud-native, microservices-based applications that leverage advanced techs — IoT, big data, AI, ML, blockchain.

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Front end

JavaScript

Practice

21 years

Projects

2,200+

Workforce

50+

ScienceSoft uses JavaScript’s versatile ecosystem of frameworks to create dynamic and interactive user experience in web and mobile apps.

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React JS

Workforce

80+

ScienceSoft achieves 20–50% faster React development and 50–90% fewer front-end performance issues due to smart implementation of reusable components and strict adherence to coding best practices.

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Angular JS

Practice

13 years

Workforce

100+

ScienceSoft leverages code reusability Angular is notable for to create large-scale apps. We chose Angular for a banking app with 3M+ users.

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Vue.js

By using a lightweight Vue framework, ScienceSoft creates high-performant apps with real-time rendering.

Ember.js

When working with Ember.js, ScienceSoft creates reusable components to speed up development and avoid code redundancy.

MeteorJS

ScienceSoft uses Meteor for rapid full-stack development of web, mobile and desktop apps.

VR in the Automotive Industry: Consulting and Development by ScienceSoft

With 33 years in immersive software development and the extensive automotive industry knowledge, ScienceSoft is your insightful consultant and a trustworthy development vendor.

Automotive VR: consulting

  • Assistance with a VR software concept.
  • Development road-mapping.
  • Design of a scalable architecture.
  • Technology stack definition and optimization.
  • Planning of integration with required hardware devices and software products.
Go for consulting

Automotive VR: development

  • Business analysis and research.
  • VR software architecture design.
  • UX and UI design.
  • 3D modeling.
  • VR development and testing.
  • Integration with required hardware devices and software products.
  • Software maintenance and continuous evolution.
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About ScienceSoft

ScienceSoft is an IT consulting and software development vendor that was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in McKinney, TX. Employing mature quality and data security management systems that are backed by ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certificates, we implement high-grade VR software for the automotive industry. If you're interested in developing an automotive VR app, feel free to reach out to us.