You’re in the market for a used car so you head to the mall. You drop into a store there, grab a cup of coffee, and start browsing the 3-D holographic selection of inventory.

Sound like the future?

It’s not. It’s possible right now at the evrdrive store in The Woodlands Mall in The Woodlands, Texas..

Foundation Automotive Corporation in late December launched its first evrdrive experience center. It takes the concept of an omnichannel car buying experience to a whole new level.

“I kept thinking about how important experiential commerce is, especially for millennials,” Cole Kutschinski, senior vice president of strategic innovation at Foundation Automotive Corp., tells Auto Remarketing. “I kept thinking about the amazing Instagram or Tik Tok moments we can create in the digital space.”

evrdrive is a subsidiary of Foundation Automotive Corporation, a dealership group headquartered in Houston and Calgary. The group established evrdrive about a year ago after Kutschinski and his father, Foundation president and CEO Kevin Kutschinski, started brainstorming about how to tap into the ecommerce space, says Cole Kutschinski.

The first evrdrive experience center in The Woodlands, near Houston, covers 2,000 square feet and includes a proprietary holographic display, a coffee bar, and comfortable seating areas. Customers can browse inventory, learn about features and pricing, schedule test drives and deliveries, and complete the purchase onsite or online.

The concept was inspired by two elements. The first was Cox Automotive’s Esntial Commerce platform, which enables an end-to-end online used car purchase. Cole Kutschinski was one of a handful of dealers invited by Cox to view the platform and be an early adopter. He liked the technology but figured that it would only give Foundation a short-term lead in ecommerce innovation.

Kutschinski had seen a depiction of how Mercedes-Benz engineers use holograms and was wowed by the technology. He figured holograms were something that would make evrdrive stand out. So, Kutschinski reached out to Glimm Screens International, the Dutch company that created the Mercedes-Benz hologram.

The fact Mercedes-Benz used the holograms was “instrumental” in selling the idea to Cox, adds Kutschinski. Foundation has exclusive use of the Glimm technology for auto retail in the U.S. and Europe.

The experience center is important for a new brand like evrdrive, says Kutschinski.

 “We are building this used-car independent brand nobody knows about. To sell only online is a pretty uphill climb” he says. “The experience stores are kind of a hybrid model. People can come in and learn about our brand.”

The customer experience will be the same online or offline, he adds.

evrdrive’s inventory consists of vehicles it has acquired through Manheim auctions or KBB, as well as online trade-ins. Foundation dealerships list their “aged” inventory — more than 45 days old — on evrdrive,says Kutschinski.

evrdrive takes a fee for selling the dealership inventory. Foundation has 34 brick-and-mortar dealerships in the U.S. and three in Canada.

For now, only Texas-based dealerships are participating. The evrdrive inventory is housed in a 55,000-square-foot warehouse in Willis, Texas, which Foundation uses as the “hub” for a hub-and-spoke distribution model.

It aims to open five evrdrive experience centers in Houston over the next two years and 50 nationwide within five years.

“We are trying to meet people where they are at, not only physically but in their space,” says Kutschinski.