Originally published on LinkedIn by our Senior Mobile Engineer & Director of Augmented Reality at Monstarlab, Roxana Nagy.

The automotive industry is one of the sectors that is expected to witness the most disruption by immersive tech, occupying a top position next to healthcare, education and manufacturing. There are already many business giants that are heavily invested in the use of Augmented Reality in this industry, from Porsche, Audi, BMW and Hyundai to AliBaba.

Below I am showcasing a few examples to provide inspiration and a good understanding of the opportunities that AR can bring.

1. Brand Awareness

Advertisement campaigns that use augmented reality are a huge opportunity as they can unlock untapped audiences, especially when it comes to Millennials and Gen Z. Not only that, but they also provide product interaction and exploration at a larger scale.

Porsche Taycan

Porsche has made a campaign with the AMS Magazine where readers would be able to see a 3D model of the Porsche car by scanning a QR code inside the magazine. They would also be linked to the Porsche AR Visualizer app which will be covered in the next section.

Read more about the campaign here.

Lamborghini Huracán EVO RWD Spyder

Challenged by the start of a global pandemic in 2020, Lamborghini launched their new car model virtually with the use of AR.

“We are excited to support the launch of the new Lamborghini with Apple’s augmented reality technology, so that their fans around the world can experience it from the safety of their own homes.” – Phil Schiller, Apple’s former Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing

Read more about the campaign here.

Mercedes Benz C-Class

Mercedes Benz bought to life the launch of their new C-Class with the use of AR. Singaporeans could pick between 3 different universes to get a customized experience.

Read more about the campaign here.

Abdul Latif Jameel Motors x Toyota

Abdul Latif Jameel Motors created a Snapchat campaign for the new Toyota Corolla Hybrid launch in KSA. The campaign included a product trial (AR Lens) where users could experience the car virtually before visiting the showroom.

Read more about the campaign here.

Free Fire x McLaren

Brand awareness can extend to virtual worlds also, and a great example is the esports collaboration between Free Fire and McLaren. To celebrate the launch of the iconic McLaren P1 in the game, users could see the car in their space with the help of AR.

Read more about the campaign here. Try out the experience here.

2. Car Configurator

Car configurators can generate strong emotional connection and provide active brand engagement. The potential customers can get a better understanding of what they are buying by seeing the real life sized digital car in front of them with the customization options they want.

MINI Cooper Countryman

Australia’s very first programmatic Digital 3D/AR ad showcased the MINI Cooper Countryman with different interior and exterior customization options.

Read more about the campaign here.

Porsche AR Visualiser

This app is in my opinion one of the best AR applications in the Automotive industry that I have seen so far in terms of the experience. Besides customizing your car’s color and wheels, you can drive it in AR and even learn more about the technologies.

Download the Porsche AR Visualizer app on App Store and Google Play.

Mercedes cAR

Mercedes highlights the importance of a tool like this for prospective buyers at the dealership so they can experience any A-Class configuration even if it’s not physically available on the shop floor. This application is the gateway to the full-fledged online configurator.

Read more about the app here.

3. Navigation

Switching your attention from the real world to the screen of your navigation device can be dangerous. Navigation is one of the best ways to apply AR in the automotive industry as it provides something priceless: safety.

Sygic GPS Navigation & Maps

Sygic GPS is an offline GPS navigation app used by millions of drivers. They make use of AR with 2 different features: Head-up Display (HUD) and Real View.

• HUD projects the navigation instructions onto the windshield of the car. The way this works is that it essentially reflects your device’s screen onto the windshield, making this safety feature usable only at night. This HUD is simple and available directly from your device, but of course, very limited compared to the HUDs you will see in the Audi or WayRay examples below.

• Real View is an AR video overlay, so you can see the road even when you are looking at the navigation instructions on your device.

Download the Sygic GPS Navigation app on App Store and Google Play.

Genesis GV70

Genesis’s AR View Navigation overlays AR graphics on the real-time front view video from the front view camera. This feature comes packed in the car’s infotainment system and can be customized to the driver’s preference.

Audi Q4 e-tron

Heads-up displays can also come integrated in the car from the manufacturer, like in the case of Audi Q4 e-tron. The car’s sensors, cameras, radars and GPS assist the AR heads-up display with relevant information for the driver, which appears to hover about three meters in front of the driver.

Read more about the display here.

WayRay

I first found out about WayRay who specializes in holographic AR technologies at Web Summit 2018, where WayRay and Porsche did a talk about opportunities and challenges of AR in the car industry. Their Deep Reality Display can be mounted into cars that don’t offer this option as we seen in the Audi example above.

Read more about the company here.

4. Training

Range Rover x Bosch

AR can provide interactive and cost effective training. An X-Ray Vision app developed by Bosch and Range Rover using REFLEKT ONE, helped train employees without having to remove and reinstall the dashboard of the vehicle. This sort of application, where the paper manual of a car is visually available in AR to anybody involved in car manufacturing or maintenance can bring a lot of value.

Read more about the solution here.

Digital Porsche Brand Academy

Another great example by Porsche, where they developed an AR experience to educate their employees about the brand’s history and values in a new and exciting way. The value of a solution like this, besides the educational one, is that it reduces the costs of physical trainings.

Read more about the campaign here.

Toyota

Object recognition technology is used to detect the car and overlay graphics which will educate the customers about the car’s features.

5. Manufacturing

BMW

Manufacturing, especially the prototyping phase can be greatly impacted by AR. The BMW Group uses augmented reality for vehicle concepts speeding up the process by as much as twelve months.

“The AR goggles and CAD data allow us to find out much more quickly whether the production worker will be able to fit the component properly later on, in series production. That way, we need far fewer test setups.” – Michael Schneider, head of Complete Vehicle at the Pilot Plant

Read more about the project here.

6. Utility

Edmunds

This car buying app introduced an interesting utility that makes use of AR: “Can it fit?”. Before committing to buying a car, you can test out if the car can fit in your garage or driveway. Pretty simple, yet very useful way of using the technology.

Download the Edmunds app on App Store or Google Play.