On a cool November afternoon, I was picked up from Gizmodo’s Midtown Manhattan office by a company called Holoride in a new metallic blue Audi SUV. Holoride CEO Nils Wollny stepped out, well-coiffed and wearing a “Motorverse” T-shirt. Smiling, he waved me into the car. “Are you ready?” he asked with a German baritone accent. I got in and buckled up, ready to preview an extremely specific vision of the future.

If you follow tech news, you’ve heard that Mark Zuckerberg fueled his empire to build the Metaverse, a type of immersive virtual reality where you can work, socialize, and play. The Motorverse is Holoride’s interpretation. It’s a lot like the Metaverse, but as the name implies, the Motorverse is…