Celica Forums News Portal Industry News With New Hot Wheels ID, Mattel Adds Digital Play to Toy Cars [Car and Driver]

Mattel holds hands with Apple to speed toy cars down the ramp onto the Internet of Playthings.

Ask any adult auto enthusiast how their love of cars began, and many of those born between 1965 and 2005 would bring up playtime with their collections of die-cast toy cars. A majority would probably call out Mattel's Hot Wheels brand.

Times have changed, and with handheld electronic devices and gaming consoles opening up whole new (virtual) worlds to explore, so has playtime. If you'd expect sales of physical toys like die-cast cars to slow in these conditions, think again: Hot Wheels moved over half a billion of its namesake little cars in 2018, a figure that certainly was buoyed to some degree as the brand celebrated its 50th anniversary with promotions and special editions.

Still, if you can sell half a billion of anything 50 years after introducing the product, you're doing something right, especially considering how little the toys have changed. But what now? How can Mattel get the attention of consumers who are ever more consumed by what's behind the Gorilla Glass in their hands?

Two groundbreaking new products provide some ideas of Mattel's thinking about the future of play: the new "Hot Wheels id" cars and track systems that just went on sale and the larger Hot Wheels "TechMods" gaming RC car that is still being floated on an Indiegogo page. At the core of each is the concept of "mixed play," where the physical toy may be played with in the same imaginative ways kids have always pursued. But when the user wants to play virtually, the same car takes the form of an avatar in gaming apps developed to support them. The same toy lives in both the real and virtual worlds.

Hot Wheels id

The Hot Wheels id cars and playsets represent the single greatest forward step in the brand's history, according to Hot Wheels spokesman Scott Shaffstall. Hot Wheels id models sport shimmery, nickel-based Spectraflame paint, a high index of detailing, and tires that display the name of the mini-collection to which they belong, so they look much the same.

Flip one over, though, and you can see where the id models have been fitted with a near-field communications device-essentially the same componentry that lets you use ApplePay at a retail shop. For $6.95 apiece, they are roughly the same size and weight as previous Hot Wheels toys, and many even use the same die-cast metal castings.

The electronics don't compromise their ability to sail around an orange track as well as any of the 7,000,000,000 (!) Hot Wheels produced to date. But add a rigid, sensor-equipped Hot Wheels id Smart Track or playset, and the Hot Wheels smartphone or tablet app allows users to clock the car's actual speed (in mph, adjusted to 1/64 scale) and keep track of key specs like highest top speed, total mileage accrued on Smart Tracks, number of races it entered and has won, and the number of other challenges it has completed. Think of it as a Carfax for Hot Wheels, and you won't be far off.

The Hot Wheels id cars are activated by running them through a section of Hot Wheels id Smart Track orange track called the Race Portal, which detects the unique ID of a particular car and retains information of that car's on-track shenanigans in its internal 4-MB memory bank, even when there's no smartphone connected to it at the time. The Portal can be purchased on its own for $39.95 or as part of the $179.99 Smart Track Kit, the latter containing 16 track segments, including a Race Portal, a loop, a jump, and the most powerful booster module Hot Wheels has ever offered. Mileage, lap numbers and speed data are recorded as the car passes by the Portal's infrared sensors as long as the track is fully composed of Smart Track segments. More than 50 different Smart Track combinations can be assembled using a single kit. If your child (or you) wants to lengthen the track by a few feet or, hell, a few miles using your classic track segments, they will connect seamlessly, although laps won't be counted and mileage won't accrue.

"The world is getting more digital," said Ted Wu, head of design for Hot Wheels. "We know from research that 92 percent of kids ages 3 to 12 have access to handheld devices. We want to make sure we're futureproofing our brand by playing where we know our consumers-kids and collectors-are playing."

Racing into Cyberspace with 600 Games for Your Avatar

And where exactly are they playing when they're not pushing little cars around orange tracks? Online, of course, where Hot Wheels has been offering games of its own for years, but never linked with the commensurate physical toys.

"While the brand is no stranger to digital play, this is the first time our fans will be able to keep track of top speeds, races won, and challenges completed with Hot Wheels id die-cast in the physical world," said Chris Down, chief design officer at Mattel. "Then, they can collect, manage, and race the same cars in the digital world. This revolutionary mixed-play experience enables kids of all ages to take on a challenge like never before.”

Indeed, with some 600 games available on the free Hot Wheels id app for play with their id cars' online avatars, there is plenty of opportunity for challenge. Education, too: the app also shows the actual OEM designer who built the life-size car, the latter feature representing what Shaffstall describes as the brand's "first step toward rolling out more touchpoints to get kids interested in automotive capabilities." He imagines that future versions of the app will include actual tech specs of the original vehicles, such as their power-to-weight ratios, real zer0-to-60-mph times, and top speed.

The id Cars: Favorites and Some New Additions

Or kids may log on simply to brag to other users about the latest top track-speed record they just set with their Motosaurus or Arachnorod, two Hot Wheels original designs that, along with Howlin' Heat, Shark Hammer 2.0, and four OEM models (the Corvette C7R, the SRT Viper GTS-R3, the 2016 Mercedes-AMG GT, and the Aston Martin One-77), comprise the first (and most collectible-wink-wink) batch, or "mix," in Hot Wheels-speak, of id cars.

In a not at all subtle nod to the line's high-tech emphasis, Hot Wheels is making its new id products available initially only at Apple Stores and via online ordering. The second mix-comprising the '17 Nissan GTR R35, Tesla Model S, Lamborghini Miura P400 SV, 2018 Camaro SS, Pagani Huayra, '70 Dodge Charger R/T, Scorpedo, and Bone Shaker-will be available via Amazon, scheduled to arrive on Prime Day, July 15.

Four additional id models are only available in sets: Rally Finale and Super Blitzen come along with the Smart Track kit, and id versions of GT Hunter and Twin Mill arrive with the Race Portal. Hot Wheels plans to have a total of 51 id cars available by the end of the year, but only through the Apple Store, Amazon, and-beginning in October-Target stores. Expect another 100 to join the fray in 2020, when it also will become available in more retail outlets.

Hot Wheels TechMods Accelo GT Gaming RC Car: App Controls Car or Car Controls App

Hot Wheels may not be as well known for its RC cars as its 1/64-scale die-casts, but the brand is no newbie to the RC market, either. Ditto Hot Wheels' forays in the gaming world. And, given that RC cars and virtual cars are both remotely controlled, often using similar controllers, the new build-it-yourself TechMods Accelo GT Gaming RC Car and its avatar in the virtual world probably feel about the same to drive. The physical TechMods car has no separate controller but is driven via controls in the TechMods app, which incidentally is where the car's assembly directions are found.

The real twist here comes when the user wants to drive the digital version online in the app, whereupon the handheld device and the car do a switcheroo and swap roles. This is Car as Controller mode, in which the user holds the physical car in his or her hands, both facing the screen, as the online version of the car follows the user's movements in its efforts to maneuver around fantasy tracks in the app.

The TechMods car isn't officially on sale yet but is currently offering its Accelo GT to hand raisers via an Indiegogo page for $55 (plus shipping), with deliveries estimated for September. Why is Mattel, a publicly traded company that sells toys by the hundreds of millions, using Indigogo for this product? Apparently, for feedback.

"We have a lot of experience creating toy cars and a ton of research on how kids play with them, but introducing a gaming RC car is exciting new territory for us. We'd like to make sure that what we know applies to TechMods-and also find out what we don't know by inviting early adopters into the process via Indiegogo."

If one thing is clear after learning about the new Hot Wheels id cars and the TechMods vehicle, it's that Hot Wheels has not been resting on the laurels of mid-nine-figure sales numbers and expecting that to continue.

"It's all the things that have made Hot Wheels great, only now enhanced by technology," as Wu summarized. We'll have to wait and see if the new Hot Wheels id cars and tracks lose any of their charm-especially in the eyes of youngsters-on their way into the virtual world. One thing we do know is that the brand's next 50 years are going to be quite different than the first.