Test Drive with AR & VR: How Automotive Brands Use Immersive Technology

AR/VR  ·  2023-09-20  ·  3 min read  ·  By Maya A.

The automotive purchase journey in Indonesia has always been a high-stakes, high-effort experience for both buyers and brands. Visiting multiple dealerships, comparing specifications across confusing brochures, waiting for a test drive slot — it is a process designed for an era when physical presence was the only option. AR and VR are dismantling that process and rebuilding it around the customer's convenience.

The Automotive Sales Problem AR Solves

Automotive sales are won or lost on emotion as much as specification. A buyer might research a vehicle for weeks online, but they commit — or don't — based on how the car makes them feel. That feeling has traditionally required physical proximity: sitting in the seat, hearing the engine, seeing the colour in real daylight.

AR and VR create a version of that emotional moment that can happen anywhere — at home, at the office, or on a phone during a commute. They do not replace the test drive, but they create a powerful pre-qualification that makes the dealership visit shorter, more focused, and more likely to result in a purchase.

AR Car Configurators: Place Your Car Anywhere

A WebAR vehicle configurator lets a prospective buyer place a true-to-scale 3D model of a car in their own environment — their driveway, their garage, the street outside their home. They select colours, wheels, and trim levels and see the changes render in real time on the actual vehicle model in their actual space.

The psychological effect is significant: seeing a car in your own context — not in a studio photograph or a showroom — creates ownership psychology. The car becomes "my car" before any contract is signed. InReality Solutions has deployed this experience for automotive brands in Indonesia, with measurable increases in qualified dealership enquiries from customers who had already identified their exact configuration before visiting.

VR Showrooms: The Full Line at Any Location

A physical showroom can hold perhaps three to five vehicles. A VR showroom holds every model, every variant, every colour, in every market where the brand operates — and can be accessed from a headset in the dealership, a tablet in a client's boardroom, or a smartphone at home.

For fleet procurement — a significant part of the Indonesian automotive market, where companies purchase multiple vehicles for corporate fleets — VR showrooms allow procurement teams to evaluate options and build specifications without requiring multiple site visits or waiting for specific models to be available in a physical location.

Interior Experience and Feature Demonstration

Modern vehicles have sophisticated interior technology that is difficult to demonstrate in a static photograph or even a short video. VR allows a customer to sit inside a virtual vehicle interior, interact with the infotainment system, adjust the seat and mirrors, and understand the spatial feel of the cabin before visiting the dealership.

Feature demonstrations — adaptive cruise control, parking assistance, driver attention monitoring — can be simulated in VR environments that would be impossible to demonstrate safely in a showroom car park. Customers arrive at the dealership already familiar with features they would otherwise need to be walked through at length.

Deployment at Scale

InReality Solutions works with automotive brands and distributors in Indonesia to develop and deploy AR and VR experiences across the full sales funnel — from social media AR filters that introduce a new model launch to WebAR configurators that drive qualified dealership traffic to VR showroom installations in key locations. Explore our AR for sales and marketing service or speak with our team about your automotive project.