Real car, virtual track: 435 hp. in the parking lot with Cupra UrbanRebel | Video December 03, 2023 2

It’s called the Cupra Exponential Experience and is an “absurd” technology experiment. Those crazy people at Cupra decided to take one of their best cars, the Cupra UrbanRebel Racing, an electric racing car. 320 kW/435 hp (3.2 seconds for 0-100), which anticipates the lines of the UrbanRebel “for mere mortals”, and launches it on a virtual track… but a real one.

The competition is halfway between real and virtual because UrbanRebel Racing is used to drive in reality, on the asphalt, and not in a stationary state, so to speak, but by forcing us to experience a virtual track. The result from the outside is a car that drives around a huge parking lot with almost no meaning.

However, the meaning is there because the driver wears a zero-latency virtual reality viewer that perfectly syncs the virtual circuitry with the car’s (real) reactions.

Yes, the work of the Cupra team is at the highest level. The synchronicity between reality and virtual is so high that many colleagues who suffered in the past from motion sickness in the presence of classical spectators managed here without experiencing any discomfort, and they were the best litmus test, given that I personally have always been quite resistant to this phenomenon when I tried simulators, or when I had the Audi experience with Holoride.

Achieve what you want “zero latency” (it’s there, but it’s subtle) was fundamental to this project because that’s the only way you can really bring the two worlds together. The test begins at the first turn where I enter long and with a trickle of gas, losing my butt, only to be able to immediately regain it with counter-steering (you can see this in the video). Synchronization between my fast counter-steering and accurate reproduction The same in the virtual world allows me to continue driving without having to cry for help, and to do so with great satisfaction, considering that at the end of the day my time will be the best among my Italian colleagues.

Here’s the thing: it may seem like a game, a nonsense, but if I could rediscover all the real sensations of the time when I was actually racing, and if I could get the most out of the car on a virtual track drawn on real asphalt, then Cupra hit the target.

I get feedback from the car from the tires on the asphalt and from the very direct steering. and accurate. The sound of the engine (from Sennheiser) tells me the speed.that however it is also plays in the “video game” through the lines I see on the ground. However, be careful: these trajectory lines do not indicate, like in video games, where to brake or where to accelerate, but instead indicate how high the speed is in relation to the turn. The difference is small, but it just means you can go through a red corner safely, knowing that you’re too fast and will therefore lose your rear end and have to counter the turn.

The video speaks more than a thousand wordsbut I advise you look at this carefully to specific: I my head movements while I’m taking the curves they are the same as the ones the driver uses when looking at the track I’m looking for the essence. And it’s perfect different from video games where are you looking for the apex point with a fixed head…

Today the project is in full swing, but Cupra does not stop. The next step is essentially to create an entire part dedicated to multiplayer and competitions where cars from different countries collide with each other on the same virtual track and create a full collision simulation. In fact, thanks to the extreme calibration of the electric motor, a virtual accident between our avatars can be created in reality, especially since the electric motor has enormous and instantaneous torque.

This makes it possible, for example, to simulate a collision using multiple engine “microbrakes” without losing too much performance, since each microbraking is immediately compensated for by an instantaneous torque delivery. It is difficult to explain in words, but they promise to succeed, and the theory fully supports them.

And in the future? The idea could be to hand over the project (cars and technology) to entrepreneurs who can create “virtual parks”, a kind of motorsport island of happiness where anyone can buy a ticket and enjoy the experience before their eyes. and completely safe. A democratization of motorsport not limiting yourself to simulators, but actually getting behind the wheel of a real racing car.