Volvo partners with Epic Games to use Unreal Engine for in-car graphics

Volvo decided to look for some help on its infotainment systems and partnered with one of the biggest names in the industry - Epic Games. This should ensure the next generation Volvo electric cars will come with some of the best graphics available.

Epic Games is not the first partnership Volvo struck, it partnered first with Google for development of an integrated Android solution for its cars as well as for Polestar's.

Partnership with Epic Games will bring the Unreal Engine, already in its fifth edition and responsible for rendering some of the most photorealistic application ever. It was even used in the latest Matrix movie.

Some screens are getting bigger, some are getting smaller - the industry is at the crossroads with customers as well as manufacturers seemingly split in their preference. Screen size aside, the quality of the graphics is taking a really important place with realistic visualisations being clearly preferred by drivers and passengers. Animations and screen transitions are about to become fluid making the electric car experience even more special.

Volvo is focusing on its next generation infotainment system with the Driver Information Module promised to be twice as fast as it is in current models. The beauty of using Unreal Engine is the scalability of the software, meaning when future cars get more powerful chipsets it can quickly be adjusted to take advantage of them.

With today's announcement Volvo gave us a sneak preview of its upcoming electric car which will be announced later this year. The Unreal Engine software will debut alongside the expected flagship XC90 replacement which for the very first time will break with Volvo's tradition of using numbers to name car models - it looks like the new electric Volvo will be called Embla according to trademark recently filed by the company.

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