From Objects to Experience : Paris Motor Show

Seems like a lifetime ago but it was only October that I was speaking at Paris 3D alongside dear friends at Seven Friday. So I thought I would go along to the Paris expo at Porte de Versailles. It's taken me while to write this article though.

I've always had at the back of my head the old adage that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. I really have to get this one off my chest though. Individual projects aside, and all the hard work that goes into these things, As a car show... is this what they're all like??

If you don't count museums, I don't think I've actually been to a bona fide car show, I've helped develop interactive games for Ford for the North American International Auto Show in Detroit , and the Delhi Motor Show, created content for these cars in my former company RITH (our clients were Imagination and VITAL), I've consulted a few exhibition companies over the years... and in my actual job now VITAL we are the de-facto prototype engineering experts, making show cars and demonstrators, as well as functioning HMIs in rapid timescales, some of which end up at car shows and launches.

Two years into my automotive journey there, I'm still pretty new to this field with many firsts to come. Things that either leave me astonished or entirely underwhelmed are aplenty in this field. So armed with my 8 Euro child's ticket (couldn't figure out the ticket site!!) I made my way to to the expo and somehow got in and honestly... I felt like I was watching a British Pathe video from the 1950s. Complete with a car on a turntable, literally as you walk in with Hopium.

Although it was cool to be there, as a whole, it was underwhelming to say the least. SORRY... I'll mention why so that this little rant piece has some merit!

First up, .... what did you see?

The show was split across a very large and sprawling venue in multiple levels, a whole section was dedicated to aftermarket parts and accessories (not even sure if that was part of the main show) which I avoided and went straight into the main show. The main show was as you'd expect, OEMs trying to capture attention using a variety of subtle and not so subtle retina magnets.

Plenty of screens and environmental feature abound and a few installations, such as the Peugeot 408 in a sphere.

Stellantis (Jeep), Peugeot, Renault (Dacia, Alpine) BYD, Wey, Ora.. were there with new offerings, notably no VW, BMW.

From Objects to Experiences

This is an industry undergoing what Autocar in their review called 'a huge technology shift'. But where are these visions of transformation. Is a car just exterior and styling, with a dash of performance and utility? Or is it now much more about experience and the whole interconnected ecosystem you buy into? Shouldn't shows in the Post COVID era provide more salient opportunities to sample that future experience and differentiate.

As we're ambling towards 50% of car sales in Europe being electric, in my opinion it would make more sense to highlight exactly what electrification offers for the driving experience itself and how things have progressed since the 50s. What do cars mean for us as drivers and passengers and the places we live? How are these new cars fundamentally different and better? A car show can be a place where you can get up close and personal, but also experience a vehicle in a more interactive way.

Let's focus on experience alone, how do the individual cars showcase this... currently, THEY don't! The most I saw people do is get in cars, touch a few touchscreens and leave.

We're in the era of cars that offer smooth, quiet, and efficient performance, providing drivers with a more enjoyable driving experience, how do these design features get profiled and expanded on during that small frame of time you have in the car at a show?

How do experiential activations move from retina magnets to providing thrilling experiences. VR and AR have the potential to make car shows more engaging and interactive for visitors, and to provide a more immersive and informative experience but they are so woefully underutilised.

So far these are things people have already done to an extent.. Though they were ALL ABSENT in my experience at the Paris Motor Show.

• Using VR to allow visitors to take a virtual test drive of a car before it is available in production. This could give visitors a sense of what it is like to drive the car and help them make a more informed decision about whether they are interested in purchasing it. expand that to experience bucks and simulators at shows.
• Using AR to provide more information about the features and capabilities of the cars on display. For example, an AR application could be used to overlay a diagram of the car's features onto the physical car in realtime without using an app , allowing visitors to see how it works on their own device.
• VR with passthrough + AR through screens and tablets could be used to showcase multiple options and variation.
• Using AR and realtime mobile web apps to create interactive games or challenges that allow visitors to experience the cars in an engaging way.

HMIs

Part of the reason why I got involved with VITAL was that dream of influencing and affecting the pre-production / concept level and production intent journey of automotive design in particular, with the careful application of human interaction design principles, which is mostly a science that aligns with common sense and phenomenal design, shoutout to my colleagues Waylan Jacobs and Paul Heys . I don't think OEMs quite realise how important the HMI is to the user experience.

Stepping into these cars, I found the design language for the most part to be unflattering and uninviting and although the interactions for the most part were intuitive there were some shockers too. These are production cars! Yikes.

At car shows, allowing attendees to explore and interact with the HMIs as if they were inside the car is a trick that most OEMs have missed. In the post COVID age, I still saw people wearing masks, and some people are still hesitant about getting into enclosed spaces.

So another way to display the HMIs of cars interactively at a car show is to use touchscreens or other types of interactive displays external to the car itself. How about an app? This could involve setting up display screens next to each car that allow attendees to interact with a simulation of the car's HMI, or mirroring of the interaction externally. How about using digital assistants inside the car to onboard the visitor? I barely had any interaction with the people on the stands.

You could argue that HMIs are primarily designed for functionality and safety, rather than an experiential lift, however there is a world in which you can bring tiny touches of excitement and charm into those interfaces which we interact with so frequently.

All in all. Do car shows have a long way to go? YES. are they alive and well. YES. However I think they'll have to work harder to become a big part of the end customer user journey, we're in the age of cars that will be designed using the latest technologies, where our sense of wonder is shifting.

So how do shows become an experience you can't get anywhere else?