Porsche’s Augmented Reality HUD Could Show The Ideal Racing Line And ‘Ghost’ Cars

Porsche and Hyundai don’t have much in common, but both automakers have announced they have made a strategic investment in a company called WayRay.

While investment announcements are typically pretty boring, the partnership with WayRay is interesting as the company focuses on creating “holographic augmented reality head-up display technologies” which seemingly integrate virtual objects into the driving experience. That’s probably not the easiest thing to wrap your head around, but you think of it as an advanced head-up display which can show some pretty cool information.

As an example, Porsche showed several different mockups which look straight out of a video game. On a race track, the display could show a map of the course as well as the positions of the other drivers. The display could also be used to show your current lap time, the ideal racing line and even ‘ghost’ cars that previously lapped the track.

The benefits also extend to daily driving as Porsche envisions the technology could be used to highlight construction zones and parking spaces. That’s more in line with Hyundai’s thinking as they made the investment in WayRay to “expedite the development of holographic augmented reality (AR) navigation system[s] for future vehicles, aiming to implement it to its mass-produced vehicles as early as 2020.”

While head-up displays have been around for awhile, Hyundai and Porsche say WayRay’s technology is a breakthrough as it uses a small projector that can be installed in almost any vehicle.  The technology can also project images across the entire windshield and even onto passenger side windows.

WayRay currently has over 250 employees and plans to establish a production site in Germany next year.