ZeroLight and AWS team up to launch cars on Amazon Live

The 2022 Mitsubishi Outlander recently became the first new model in the world to be launched on Amazon Live, with the Japanese carmaker partnering with ZeroLight and AWS to offer car buyers a means of taking a closer look at the popular SUV before it goes in sale in selected markets in April. With showrooms around the world closed and auto industry events not happening because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Amazon Live platform and in-built 3D configurator from ZeroLight offers media and public the only real chance to explore the car and its many features and options.

Francois de Bodinat, CPO, ZeroLight, said: “Modern customers now expect to engage with brands digitally in creative and interactive ways. It’s fair to say that the auto industry has been a slow learner, until the impact of COVID-19 gave carmakers and retailers no choice but to catch up. Showrooms re-opening across the UK in April won’t change these new shopping habits, the toothpaste cannot go back in the tube.”

The Amazon Live experience and 3D configurator are both powered by ZeroLight’s Palette+ product. All content is rendered entirely in the cloud using AWS’s scalable infrastructure and then streamed to the user’s mobile, tablet, or computer like an interactive video, with no on-device rendering or plug-ins required.

Not only does this enable the configurator to be easily integrated into any website, but it also means that it is not limited by the customer’s hardware, making it more accessible, scalable, and comprehensive than alternatives. The impact of this is significant: the experience runs on AWS’s EC2 compute technology, which delivers 10 times the processing power of an iPhone 11.

The 3D configurator enables customers to visualise a comprehensive range of options for any vehicle. Taking the 2022 Outlander as an example, they can personalise the SUV by choosing between various colours, trimlines, packages (including options like deflectors, mudguards, and roof rails), and accessories (ranging from bumper protectors and spoilers to wheel locks and towing hitches).

As they do so, they can freely move around the vehicle, flick between interior and exterior views, use pre-set camera angles, and even transport the SUV to four breath-taking virtual environments. This interactive experience allows customers to visualise more than 300,000 different permutations of the Outlander, which would not have been possible without the power of the ZeroLight technology.