Volvo Cars Microsoft HoloLens experience 01. Courtesy: Volvo Cars

Volvo Cars will work together with Microsoft to jointly develop next generation automotive technologies. The two companies recently revealed how Microsoft HoloLens, the world's first fully untethered holographic computer, might be used in future to redefine how customers first encounter and explore a car, as well as how cars might be bought and sold in future.

Areas of future collaboration between the two companies could include autonomous driving technologies and the utilisation of data generated from connected cars to create new services.

Today's HoloLens demonstration was conducted at Microsoft's global headquarters in Redmond, USA, and showed how mixed reality might be used by customers to configure cars in three dimensions. With HoloLens, a powerful, wearable computer, holograms are mixed into the physical world.

"HoloLens offers the freedom to create a bespoke experience which customers can steer themselves. Imagine using mixed reality to choose the type of car you want - to explore the colours, rims, or get a better understanding of the features, services and options available," said Björn Annwall, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Sales and Service.

He added HoloLens technology might also liberate dealers from more traditional sales environments and allow them to take a car configurator out on the road in small Pop-Up stores, shopping malls or on the high street, opening up new sales channels and introducing cars to a far larger potential audience.

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