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Consulting in Boston. " The role of technology helping me pick my brand and the
role of technology once I'm in my brand
are absolutely critical. That has started to
put an emphasis on how tools like configurators are increasingly important in
the eyes of consumers, and therefore the
eyes of dealers and [automakers]. "
Pre-pandemic, Hoda adds, configurators were about dreams, " a place to play
in an unconstrained environment, " and
the vehicles consumers put together there
usually bore little resemblance to the cars
they ultimately purchased. " As you fastforward to COVID-19, all of a sudden the
role of the configurator has become more
grounded in reality " and a lot of work has
gone into bridging it to the final sale. This
is particularly imperative for emerging
companies - such as the startup electric
vehicle (EV) makers Lucid Motors and
Polestar - that don't have built-up dealer
networks, he says.
More, Hoda adds, technologically
advanced configurators serve to form
the brand experience and brand identity
for consumers. This has led some premium automakers to aggressively
explore the role of augmented reality
(AR) and virtual reality (VR) in the process, thereby bringing " your vehicle into
the home virtually. "

EXPERIENCES MATTER

" From day one we've operated with a
focus on who our consumer is going to be
- individuals who tend to be really into
technology, into a digital existence, " says
Derek Jenkins, vice president of design at
Lucid, based in Newark, CA. But Lucid
also believes the way cars are purchased
at dealerships is " quite frankly broken, "
and this " led us to what we've been calling
the digital journey. " It is how a consumer
who knows nothing about Lucid can discover and " learn an immense amount
about the brand, the product, the people
behind the product and then dive deeper
into this online configurator, which itself
stretches the boundaries of what can be
done, " Jenkins explains.
At CES 2020, Jenkins was introduced
by an auto industry colleague to ZeroLight,
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Ltd., a supplier of cloud-based 3D
visualization technology that has
helped develop configurators and VR
shopping experiences for Audi, BMW,
Lamborghini, Nissan, Porsche and
Volkswagen. From that point the conversation progressed to " how much
interaction could we create, how
much volumetric feeling could we
give to the environment, " he says.
" Most configurators today are pretty
basic, especially when you compare
them to the digital and online experiences we have through gaming. Why
is there this tremendous gap between,
let's say, Gran Turismo or Forza when
I play online in terms of visuals and
experience as opposed to configurators? Why can't we work to close that
gap? It's not just an environment to
show a car in different colors. It's a
brand experience. "
So, like a videogame, the Lucid
configurator allows customers to play with their car on-screen: opening the
doors to see the interior, retracting the below-dashboard center display to
unveil a storage compartment, turning the headlights on or off, and rotating
the vehicle for a 360-degree view.
Someday, Jenkins says he imagines deeper engagement with the virtual
car because " there's more features that we can make functional, that we
haven't yet done " - for example, showing luggage being placed in the trunk
to illustrate the vehicle's cargo capacity.
Lucid plans to introduce accessories such as a roof rack and could visually
integrate these into the configurator. " The long-term future goes far beyond
that, where we could start to see the car in different environments as we
launch the car in other markets around the world, " Jenkins says. " If I'm
gaming and I choose a particular sports car, I can take it on all the racetracks around the world. "
But Lucid is coupling the online experience with a VR experience at its
planned dealerships, which are called Studios. When the consumer finishes configuring a vehicle online, he or she is issued a code, which is used
at the Studio space to retrieve it from the Lucid cloud server where it's
stored. Donning an HTC Vive VR headset that is wired to a two-seat or
four-seat platform, he or she can then sit virtually anywhere in the configured vehicle's cabin to explore its interior features. Jenkins says, " it's a
really effective tool to bridge the gap between the online experience and
the physical retail experience. "
" The configurator should be a playful element, " says Candido Peterlini,
head of digital marketing at Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg, Germany. Thus,
Peterlini adds, VW has linked it to interactive advertising: When a customer builds a vehicle in the configurator, the car created will be subsequently featured in the banner ads he or she sees at social media websites.
This linkage rolled out in October for testing in Spain and the United
Kingdom (UK).
I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

12/10/20 11:49 AM

https://bit.ly/3oWUEW7 https://www.lucidmotors.com/air/configure/

i3 - January/February 2021

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