Shift Magazine - September 2021 - 7

Hyundai aims to
" nurture long-lasting
relationships with
fans, " especially
GROOMING
THROUGH GAMING
" young consumers. "
I
n a future city envisioned by Hyundai
Motor Co., streets are devoid of congestion
and pedestrians. Cars travel
freely down empty roads. Occasionally, a
rival vehicle will sneak up from behind and
cause a crash.
No biggie. The driver springs from the
wreckage and ambles over to an autonomous
food truck and orders plates of
tacos served by robots. Air taxis sometimes
swoop throughout the cartoonish
landscape.
These are the scenes in a novel new
virtual environment, or metaverse, developed
by the automaker with the intent
of familiarizing a younger generation -
perhaps the pre-driving set - with its
latest vehicles, such as the Ioniq, Tucson
and Nexo. The metaverse is located on
the gaming platform Roblox, and it's the
first time a global automotive brand has
ventured into that space, which hosts 43
million daily users.
Hyundai describes the marketing effort
as a means to " nurture long-lasting relationships
with fans " and targeted at
" young consumers who are technologically
savvy at exploring the virtual worlds
beyond physical experiences. "
Having little experience in such nonphysical
realms, I turned to three experts
- my 12-year-old daughter and 10-yearold
sons - to evaluate Hyundai's offering.
After repeated journeys aboard the gamified
vehicles, they report it was " glitchy "
and " took too long to load. "
But when it worked, they enjoyed their
trips, particularly into the " Future Mobility
City " and " Racing Park " areas created by
Hyundai's customer-experience engineers.
The kids controlled their cars, did donuts
on the street and honked the horn on the
Nexo.
Much to my relief, it will be a few more
years before they're attempting those
maneuvers on real roads. When the
time comes, it will be noteworthy to see
whether Hyundai's early marketing efforts
have made real inroads.
- Pete Bigelow
MUSK'S TUNNEL VISION
W
hen the nation's car dealers descend on
Las Vegas in March for the NADA Show,
they may find themselves face to face
with one of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's big projects:
the tunnel transportation system built by Musk's
Boring Co.
The Las Vegas Convention Center Loop opened
to the public in June. It transports people from the
center's new West Hall to North, Central and South
Halls in two minutes, compared with the 25 minutes
it takes to walk.
That is, if the retailers don't mind being driven
through the tunnel in a fleet of Teslas, which famously
are not sold through franchised dealerships.
- Leslie J. Allen
Can Tesla's Elon Musk
count on car dealers to
go along for the ride?
september 2021 * shift
7
Shift Magazine - September 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Shift Magazine - September 2021
