Toronto, Ontario – In this week’s electric and autonomous vehicle report, a Swiss startup is taking the video gaming experience on the road, Honda is making life a little more fun for hospitalized children in California and Li-Cycle has partnered up with U.K. EV developer, Arriva.
Mobile Gaming
A Swiss company is hoping to bring the future right in front of your eyes with the unveiling of the Holograktor concept vehicle, which is equipped front-to-back with augmented reality technology.
Developed by Swiss tech startup, WayRay, the Holograktor is a concept electric vehicle that will allow passengers to play video games from their seats with Deep Reality Display HUDs and joystick-equipped armrests, as part of a new approach to the industry-standard ridesharing model.
“The idea is that you can choose Uber Black, Uber SUV, or Uber Holograktor. And if you choose the Holograktor, your ride will be subsidized by sponsored content so that the price will be much lower,” said WayRay founder and CEO Vitaly Ponomarev in a press release.
The system’s hardware is hidden in a compartment in the car’s roof, called the Shrimp, which contains the holographic system for the rear passenger.
Small Joys
Honda is giving hospitalized kids in Orange County, Calif. the opportunity to cruise the corridors in style with the introduction of “Shogo”, an electric ride-on vehicle currently being used at Children’s Health of Orange County.
Shogo is meant to be a fun, anxiety-free way for children living with illness to navigate their hospitals with ease, essentially acting as a driveable car-shaped hospital bed.
Senior exterior designer of vehicles at American Honda Motor Co. Randall Smock said that the Shogo project hit close to home.
“As someone who spent time in the hospital as a young child, I really wanted the number one objective of our Honda team in developing Shogo to ease the hardship of a hospital stay by providing kids a lasting positive memory about that experience,” said Smock.
“Every element of Shogo was designed to accommodate different needs of young children, making it as easy as possible to get in and out, simple to drive, and for the entire experience to leave them a bit happier.”
Departures and Arrival
Ontario’s battery recycler Li-Cycle announced a new partnership with U.K.-based EV developer, Arrival, to work to incorporate recycled materials into the automaker’s model lineup.
“Arrival is getting ready to put vehicles on the road, across market segments, with different lifespans. Li-Cycle has flexible technology that can address those market segments, and we’re already present in North American and we’re going to be present in Europe, so we can be a one-stop-shop to collect and recycle [Arrival’s] batteries,” said Li-Cycle chief strategy officer Kunal Phalpher.
Arrival was founded in 2015 as a start-up with backing from Hyundai and Kia and has since made a mark in the EV market, notably with a public transit bus optimized for social-distancing protocols.
Li-Cycle is due to open its first full-sized commercial hub in Rochester, NY at some point next year.
