Kicking off to the Chinese market

Read our recap of CES Asia in Shanghai, where we together with Audi introduced two new Elastic Content demonstrations to the public.

The three holoride founders at CES Asia 2019
Our founders Marcus, Nils and Daniel wearing 浩乐行

Exciting times for us holoriders! At this weeks CES Asia in Shanghai we kicked off to the Chinese market and introduced two new VR-experiences as well as our Chinese brand name 浩乐行 (HAO LE XING / “amazingly happy journey”) to the public.

Together with the premium car manufacturer and holoride shareholder Audi we gave the CES audience the chance to try two Elastic Content demonstrations in an Audi A8L fleet on an exclusive track in the center of the CES venue.

After our successful company launch at CES in Las Vegas this year, CES Asia is the perfect opportunity to enter the Chinese market. Our approach is to become the leading platform for immersive, motion-synchronized in-vehicle experiences - and the Chinese market is a key piece to this aim.

Nils Wollny, CEO and co-founder holoride
Chinese holoride name - hao le xing (amazingly happy journey)
"hao le xing" - amazingly happy journey

浩乐行

The Chinese entertainment market is one of the most dynamic ones in the world. Same counts for the passenger economy in China. Combining the two industry sectors brings a huge market potential for all participating parties. That's why it was a logical consequence to speed up our presence in China and invite industry leaders from mobility, media, and the XR sector to collaborate with holoride.

The public and press were thrilled. We just can’t get enough of people’s reactions while having their first holoride yelling “It’s magic”. This proves that we are on the right track.

Two passengers enjoying their first holoride

Dive Drive and Cosmic Chase

Our two new experiences are holoride originals from our own production in partnership with amazing CGI and Realtime specialist Mackevision. The team worked 24/7 to create the experiences "Dive Drive" and “Cosmic Chase” within just a few weeks. Mackevision is one of the global market leaders in Computer Generated Imagery from 3D-visualization to special effects for Game of Thrones and various Netflix productions.

It is amazing to be one of the first creative content studios to work with the alpha version of the holoride SDK. We are literally breaking new ground in the segment of in-car-entertainment and real-time 3D – technologically as well as creatively.

Steffen Baerenfaenger, Global Creative Lead Mackevision

What are the experiences about?

In "Dive Drive" the passenger experiences a fascinating underwater world. Floating in a submarine capsule, he encounters dolphins, manta rays and even a blue whale, the largest animal on our planet. As this is learning content, a voiceover tells us about marine life and its habits and living conditions.

In "Cosmic Chase", the passenger is a space rookie on his first mission to destroy the enemy's communications network. Not the easiest job, as the satellites are hidden in the middle of an asteroid field – and the enemy is on the loose.

Nils on stage

Audi invited Nils to take part in their official CES keynote together with Thomas Owsianski (president of Audi China), Max Yin (Audi connect & V2X) and Wu Yunzhou (Design of Audi AI:ME). He officially unveiled our Chinese brand name, gave an overview of the holoride technology and explained the two new demos Dive Drive and Cosmic Chase.

You can see the full Keynote here.

Nils Wollny on stage to present holoride at CES Asia 2019
Nils on stage in Shanghai @CES Asia 2019

What a week!

We want to be honest: The past weeks during the preparation of this event were full of blood, sweat, but luckily no tears. Maybe some tears of joy when our team yesterday jointly screamed “It’s a wraaaap!” after the CES closed its gates and the whole event was deemed a big success.

We want to say thank you to our amazing holoride team onsite for making all of this possible, to our partners, and of course to Audi for another great joint event that fascinated the guests and pushed our brand forward.

Group picture of the holoride onsite team at CES Asia 2019
The holoride team onsite in Shanghai

About holoride

German startup holoride creates an entirely new media category for passengers by connecting Extended Reality (XR) content with data points from the vehicle in real time. These data points include physical feedback, like acceleration and steering, traffic data, as well as travel route and time. holoride technology provides a new type of immersion into any kind of VR content, creating a breathtaking, immersive experience, and significantly reducing motion sickness. The tech startup was founded at the end of 2018 in Munich, Germany by Nils Wollny, Marcus Kuehne, Daniel Profendiner, and Audi, who holds a minority stake in the startup. It was hailed “Best of CES” four times (Las Vegas, January 2019), recognized as one of the 100 Best Inventions of 2019 by TIME Magazine and is part of the global innovation platform “STARTUP AUTOBAHN powered by Plug and Play.” In 2021, holoride went on to win the prestigious SXSW Pitch and was also named Best in Show.