Volvo Teams Up With Epic Games To Bring Photorealistic Visualization To Electric Cars

Volvo, develop cars with technology owned by Epic Games. (photo: twitter @volvocars)

JAKARTA - Volvo will be the latest car maker to take advantage of the graphic sophistication of Epic Games' Unreal Engine. The Swedish automaker said it would partner with the creators of Fortnite to bring "photorealistic visualization" to the next generation of electric vehicles.

At the heart of the Volvo and Epic partnership will be the “human-machine interface” (HMI), which, in the context of vehicle ownership, is another way of describing the way car owners interact with their vehicle software.

Volvo says that Epic will help build a platform on which the automaker's engineers can design software that will improve HMI while also maintaining the level of security that Volvo has so much of a reputation for.

“This technology gives us the ability to create responsive, very high-quality visuals that we can play with and overlay information, creating realistic representations when needed, all that sort of thing,” said Thomas Stovicek, Head of User Experience at Volvo. "So it's really about creating the next generation of HMI for our customers."

"Safety will be a core aspect of the new partnership," Stovicek said, as quoted by The Verge. Over the years, the company has built its reputation on security and unique design, and today's announcement is meant to underscore that.

Ideally, Volvo would like to use the Unreal Engine to give the driver what's inside the vehicle's external sensors, such as cameras, radar and soon, lidar, seeing outside the car without being "overwhelmed". "This can be a difficult process," says Stovicek.

"Other information, such as navigation and battery life and the presentation of that information, such as light, color and motion graphics, will be improved thanks to the collaboration with Epic Gamers," added Stovicek.

Unreal Engine is Epic's ultimate tool for creating realistic 3D graphics. This tool, was first showcased in first-person shooters. 1998 Unreal. Since then, it has been used in various game genres and has been adopted by other industries, especially the film and television industries.

The auto industry is a very attractive target for Epic Games, mainly because cars are easier to render realistically than humans.

Most recently, Epic said it would work with GMC to supply the HMI software for the 2022 Hummer EV pickup truck.

But Epic is increasingly interested in the automotive industry. The logic is simple: modern cars are primarily software designed and carry a number of onboard computers that rely on touchscreens and digital interfaces to the infotainment hub. While Unreal Engine is a great platform for building software.

“It gets really exciting with new hardware coming into the car, to think of the car as an additional platform that we have to get to know,” said Heiko Wenczel, Head of the Detroit Epic Games Lab, “From an HMI point of view, from an engagement point, from what game capabilities are can actually be carried over to the in-car user experience.”

Neither Volvo nor Epic will say which vehicles will be the first to feature the software provided by Unreal Engine or what kind of dead line customers expect to see these features roll out to the wider Volvo fleet.

Volvo says it plans to sell 600.000 EVs by the middle of this decade and will build a battery manufacturing facility in Europe by 2026. The company says it is working with Swedish partner Northvolt on a new generation of higher energy density batteries designed for use as integrated vehicle structure elements.

The new batteries, due after 2025, will allow for longer driving distances between charges. Even up to 1,006 kilometers and a much faster charging time.

Volvo is also bringing in internal software development as a way to help speed up the deployment of new updates to the company's fleet or fix bugs in the system. The new operating system, to be called VolvoCars.OS, will power the company's next generation of electric vehicles and enable unattended driving on the highway.