centre console designs

With every new premium or luxury car that is introduced the usage of large LCDs is increasing. All this started with Tesla's Model S with its huge LCD display in the middle of the dashboard. This concept took the automotive industry by storm. Volvo followed quickly with an equally large LCD display in the centre console which controls everything from navigation functions to climate control settings.

The original idea for the LCD was to display navigation system maps and radio channels with RDS systems however with the evolution of the smart phone and mobile tablets the idea to integrate a large LCD system with multiple control started to make sense. Audi went one better by using a LCD display to replace the analog speedometer and tachometer. Having this has many advantages such as giving the flexibility to the driver to toggle various menus and also access multiple functions and also change the display to suit their preference.

The Tesla LCD houses a lot of functions within the system such as suspension setting, climate control settings, performance settings, radio / audio system, navigation and many other in-vehicle controls. There are of course pros and cons of integrating so many functions into the LCD display. For one, it is cumbersome to search the functions when you are in motion and if the system crashes it can render the car not drivable. For example in the Volvo, the climate control is set via the LCD which is troublesome you are driving. You would have to take your eyes off the road to look at the LCD to adjust the climate control settings.

Car makers like BMW, Mercedes, Lexus and Porsche have opted to separate the climate control settings from the LCD which makes it safer when adjusting while in motion. Tesla's LCD display have been known to crash and require a reboot periodically.

This trend is unlikely to stop since more and more car makers are going in this direction. The size of the LCD has growing significantly from the previous norm of 7" to now 12" to 22" depending on the car. BMW and Mercedes have kept the LCD size to between 12" to 18" depending on the model with Mercedes going one better by creating a one piece design for the A, E and S class that houses the instrument display and the multi function audio, navigation and climate control in one large panel that has partition in the middle.

Soon the car audio makers such as Alpine, Pioneer, Kenwood and etc will struggle to find a place in the car industry with the car makers doing away with traditional audio systems. They could possibly just end up supplying only the radio receiver component since all the other parts has to be integrated into the vehicle's computer system. DVDs are a thing of the past since most drivers use MP3 or other forms of media for audio file storage.

This evolution is here to stay and computers taking over the vehicle controls will become more integrated as time passes.