You’ve heard about “peak content,” “peak podcast,” and “peak subscription.” But “peak screen?”
According to Klaus Busse, that’s where the auto industry’s at. And he’s the guy behind Maserati’s design. Before his current gig, Busse headed up design for Alfa Romeo, Fiat, and Lancia.
Of course, he talking about those incredibly growing screens in our dashboards. As he explained to New York Times columnist, Lawrence Ulrich, “Screens have their right of existence – they do a lot of things better than physical switches. It’s just been pushed a little far.”
He’s referring to the design condition known as “Peak Screen” when bloated displays overwhelm a vehicle. Side effects include clunky interfaces, distracted driving, and of course, the aesthetically gross size of these gargantuan screens themselves.
Another designer – BMWi’s Kai Langer concurs: “‘Bigger’ isn’t always the the richest.”
But none of these “artistes” are big enough to counter the trend we’ve seen expanding – pun intended – at CES these past few years. Our friend, Shawn DuBravac, calls them “pillar to pillar,” because they extend the entire length of the vehicle. In dashboard lingo, size indeed does matter.
Shawn’s former counterpart at the Consumer Technology Association, Steve Koenig, refers to the larger trend as the “screenification” of cars and trucks, catering not just to drivers but all occupants of the vehicle, each of whom can seek out and consume their own unique content. The automakers love this concept because it plays into the “passenger economy” where every live body in a car can be individually or collectively monetized.
As Ulrich reports, Tesla started this trend with 17″ iPad like screens 14 years ago with the Model S. At the time, car lovers couldn’t believe it as drivers were given more control over the inner-working of the car. Compared to Mercedes-Benz’s “Hyperscreen,” which we featured when it debuted, there is now 56″ of screen real-estate for designers and consumers to play with.
Ulrich tells us the next frontier is the windshield, providing even more inches for AI-powered dials, settings, and data. Heads-up displays (HUDs) are nothing new, but BMW (once on the slow side of the in-car screen scene) is now set to introduce “Panoramic Vision” that expands the concept, and is ostensibly safer because the driver is looking ahead – at the road and at a gaggle of gauges.
These HUDs that show the road ahead – plus coffee shops, railroad crossings, and other POIs- or points of interest – are all part of the commerce potential of vehicles, in much the same way end-cap displays command higher payments at Kroger’s or Publix.
And of course, when the vehicle is parked – that is, charging, for EV owners – the screen can double as a video game display, a movie screen, or a source of yet another Zoom meeting.
Every time Paul and I do a “connected car” presentation, someone asks about driver distraction on these expanding screens – and justifiably so. But in 1930, the dashboard AM radio was nearly banned in some states for the very same reason. And have you noticed that driver next to you checking email on an iPhone as the car hurtles along at 75 mph?
As BMW chairman Oliver Zipse recently posited, “If you have to look down to operate your car, we think it’s a big mistake.”
If he’s right, we’re looking at hundreds of millions of mistakes whizzing by us day and night as consumers juggle their driving duties with their seemingly insatiable need to entertain and inform themselves while they’re in their vehicles.
The jury is out on whether ever-expanding screens will win out over heads-up displays. And as Ulrich notes, Maserati’s Busse is taking a center-lane approach – a pair of screens on its GranTurismo that are more subtle than what BMW and Mercedes-Benz are offering.
“We don’t want a screen to the be the main protagonist.”
Spoken like a true car aficionado, but these days the technologists are squarely in the lead, as driving is taking a back seat – at least for now – to data and display. At the last several CES events we’ve attended, it’s all about the base size of screens and attendees ooh and ahh while staring at all the glass in the dash. The star of the show is the in-dash screen – or screens.
And as data become more ubiquitous as clever engineers and statisticians work together to produce usage statistics from cars and trucks, you imagine visions of spreadsheets dancing in their heads.
This is why for radio stations, the promise of bigger screens offers up potential, but also peril. Stations – and their personalities, programs, and clients – need to look better in these expanded spaces. Displays need to help listeners navigate their content, making radio as visually engaging as it’s suppose to sound:
It’s another reason why we’re high – or better put, wide – on improved displays from Quu and its growing list of dashboard content partners, as well as DTS’s AutoStage which makes the best use of screen displays for a local market’s stations I’ve seen.
At a time when radio broadcasters are being squeezed by digital streaming platforms, podcasts, satellite radio, and even talking books in the car, display matters. And so does AI, the “brain food” that remembers driver and passenger preferences in these increasingly sophisticated four-wheel tech marvels:
The bonus isn’t just album art and client QR codes – its usage data we haven’t experienced before that drives figure-8s around Nielsen data that only tells when a radio listener is out of the house – not on the road or where they’re going.
Connecting the virtual dots between drivers, passengers, and retail is the next frontier for a radio broadcasting industry in dire need of data that makes the case that radio not only still works in the car, but is also the best delivery medium for the retail experience.
Screen that.
Join me, Ginny Morris, Joe D’Angelo, Pierre Bouvard, and Fletcher Whitwell for “Driving Revenue and Insights with Connected Car Listening Data” in the West Hall (W213-W2105) this Sunday morning at 10am to kick off the NAB in Vegas. Info here.
And thanks to long-time DASH attendee and fellow Michigander Bruce Goldsen for the heads-up (sorry) on this story. – FJ
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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“Keep your mind on your driving, keep your hands on the wheel….” – Seven Little Girls, Sitting in the Back Seat
I once bought a BMW 7-series that had a 5″ TV in the dashboard!! I found a hack online that would let the display work while the car was moving…but the analog reception was terrible so I rarely used it (and listened to the audio only). In 2023 they’re pushing more distractions upon us – and they’re getting away with it. Cars have lots of safety features -and the way they’re loading up on distractions in the “cabin” – they’ll need them. No one can deny the world is changing-and what used to be a relaxing drive with the baseball game on is now a tenuous drive wondering which way that guy over there is gonna swerve next. How about the “smart” car that has an interface that only displays what we need to see while driving? Speed, Oil, Temperature, safety hazards…everything else should be set before you start driving. Put a button to adjust the radio/audio sourc on the steering wheel. It’s a rare driver who pays attention to the road these days -the blame is shared by the manufacturers and…the driver.