Urban Rebel concept previews the Raval hatchback, which will be released in 2025
Cupra’s new Exponential Experience – which allows people to drive a real electric racing car around a digital track, viewed through virtual reality (VR) goggles – has “huge potential to do things no one has done before” in both real-world as virtual motorsport and elsewhere.
So says former World Touring Car Championship racer Jordi Gené, who helped Cupra’s motorsport division develop the ‘phygital’ – a fusion of physical and digital – system.
The Exponential Experience is built around the 430bhp Urban Rebel concept, which previews the upcoming 2025 entry-level Raval hatchback but is essentially a purpose-built electric racing car.
Although it can be driven normally, the car is also equipped with a VR headset, which then projects a digital reconstruction of a Barcelona street circuit into the driver’s view.
It uses what Cupra calls a ‘reality loop’ system, allowing drivers to drive over boost tokens on the digital track to give the car a real power boost.
Geofencing is used to ensure the car remains safe when the driver cannot see the real world, and a co-driver can also stop the car.
Cupra developed the concept in response to the rising popularity of gaming culture, with the idea that it could be a potential way to merge real-world and digital motorsport in the future.
Gené said a key development focus was on ensuring the virtual world was synchronized with the real sensations the driver experiences.
He said: “When you use a simulator to test or learn a circuit, you normally know you are in a simulator because your body is not moving properly. But when you push, the car really slides and the sensations are real. This way you can learn a track with real experiences.
“Nobody has put a good simulator in a racing car before. So its potential is as great as you can imagine. We could have one car physically racing on a track in Barcelona, and competing against someone else racing somewhere else on the same track.”
Gené added that the technology is still in development and that the team is working on a system that will produce physical feedback in the real world when there is virtual contact between cars on the digital track.
Another key focus has been on minimizing the delay between translating physical input to the car into a response in the digital images – the maximum delay has now been reduced to three-hundredths of a second.
“If you are delayed even more, the delay means you will get sick,” Gené said.
Cupra has yet to establish long-term plans for the system, but Gené believes drivers can use it to really get to know circuits, organize races between people in different locations and ease the transition from virtual racers to real-world motorsport.
He added: “When we saw its potential, we started saying, ‘Okay, we need people with a lot of imagination.’ If we just want to race this on a normal track, there’s no point.
But with the glasses you can have any track anywhere in the world – and you can add extra toys and benefits that you can’t get in the real world. This is a great way to bring together two worlds of motorsport.”
New reality or virtual madness?
The most unsettling moment of the Cupra Exponential Experience comes when you first step into the Urban Rebel.
It’s a familiar race car environment, with a minimal dashboard, a purposeful roll cage and sleek bucket seats into which a helpful Cupra mechanic implants you by pulling a six-point harness. But then the technician attaches VR glasses to your head. Initially, the glasses allow you to see the real world – in this case an empty long-term parking lot at Girona airport.
But a virtual gate is imposed on this that marks the start of the course. Trying to drive towards it while adjusting to the Urban Rebel’s stiff throttle and brakes is truly disconcerting.
Then you reach the gate and suddenly reality disappears from view and all you can see is the virtual world of Cupra: in this case a tight street circuit laid out on a stylized virtual version of Barcelona. It looks like something straight out of Mario Kart Tour.
Strangely enough, it’s so tiring that even though I’m driving a real car, I quickly forget that I can’t see where I’m driving it in the real world.
During my two warm-up laps, Jordi Gené, strapped into the passenger seat to act as guide and emergency brake, suggests I slow down to take in some of the views, like a virtual Sagrada Familia. It’s unclear if he just wants to show off the hard work of Cupra’s development team or if this is a conceit to keep my speed down.
When my timed runs start, more Mario Kart elements come into action: power-ups on the course give me an extra boost, there’s a racing line to follow on the road, and the course changes significantly halfway through my run.
It’s not alarming at all: the real feeling you get from the Urban Rebel is a real boost when you drive around this virtual circuit.
Was I fast? Unknown. I certainly felt that when the VR goggles were down, although the tight nature of the track meant I was never able to harness much of the Urban Rebel’s power. Later, when you see how other people tackled the experience, you’ll definitely notice how slowly they guided the Urban Rebel around the parking lot.
Ultimately, the Exponential Experience is truly unusual – albeit one that is, frankly, much less gimmicky than you might expect. Merging the real and virtual motorsport worlds may sound like a bad idea, but it actually has potential.
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