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This Chinese carmaker just found the cutest cure for road rage

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If you ever wished you owned James Bond’s Aston Martin so you could activate its frontal machine guns whenever someone cut you off on the road, XPeng has the next best thing. The Chinese car manufacturer has developed an augmented reality game that lets you fire all kinds of emojis at the offender—from angry faces to flip-flops to Nintendo-style bombs—which are projected over the entire windshield in 3D space, giving the illusion of actually hitting the cars. 

While tossing a digital shoe may not be as satisfying as throwing an actual flip-flop, it may actually be beneficial for your mental state. Road rage has become a dangerous epidemic in the U.S., with approximately 92% of Americans reporting having witnessed road rage at least once in the past year.

The statistics are sobering: Road rage incidents led to 481 shootings and 777 deaths from 2014 to 2023. Gun violence related to road rage incidents has increased annually since 2018—that year, at least 58 road rage shooting deaths occurred in the United States; by 2023, the number had doubled to 118. On average in 2022, a person was shot and either injured or killed in a road rage incident every 16 hours.

The crazy shootings don’t happen in China—where gun access is restricted—but the rage remains. This is why XPeng CEO He Xiaopeng introduced Road Rage Reliever during last week’s presentation of his new 2025 XPeng P7, a futuristic sedan with a design that gives me serious 1980s Citroën DS vibes. He says the game represents “technology-driven emotion.”

“We used to prioritize technology first, but starting this year we will prioritize experience first,” Xiaopeng said on stage, adding that the game is a way to “be civilized and experience ‘civilized frustration’ rather than engaging in dangerous behaviors.”

Road Rage Reliever transforms your windshield into a virtual battleground. But........

© Fast Company