00:00do you remember the top gear lexus lfa episode and what was said about the digital ref counter
00:05we're going to address this among other things other things being
00:09screens that all new cars seem to have these days are screens really necessary are they dangerous
00:15and why do some car makers still keep analog gauges i'll try to answer these questions today
00:21so stay tuned
00:38first a brief history of screens in cars car makers experimented with them even back in the 1970s
00:44and that included cathode ray tubes yes like the ones we had in old television sets at some
00:51stage aston martin tried fitting those in the lagonda which was so successful the industry
00:56mostly stuck to good old buttons and knobs for the next two or three decades and the most screen we
01:02saw was the tiny rds display sort of the size of a strip of scotch tape bigger screens appeared at
01:10the
01:10turn of the century interestingly enough it wasn't necessarily the premium brands which got them first
01:15as standard an lcd display was standard on the 1997 toyota prius whereas the mercedes-benz s-class
01:22of the era only had an optional display for the sat nav and it must have cost half a prius
01:27standard display on a premium model came with the first generation i drive infotainment system in the
01:33e65 bmw 7 series yes the one designed by chris bangle to this day the internet cannot make up its
01:39mind
01:39what was worse the original i drive or the bungle but drop a comment what you think it went downhill
01:47from there screens larger and smaller started appearing in various models they were mostly
01:52optional mainly for navigation some were touch screens but they were usually accompanied by a
01:58plethora of physical controls because for example ac was unrelated to sat nav the first automaker to go all
02:05in on screens was tesla and the screen race is on since 2012 the displays are growing bigger and these
02:11days they even serve as gauge clusters if the car maker chooses to leave something in front of the
02:17driver for example in the ex30 volvo followed in tesla's footsteps and got rid of the gauge cluster
02:22there is even no head-up display everything is on the central screen the new generation mini also has
02:30no gauge cluster but at least the driver can see some vital information on the hud also mini has a
02:36very good infotainment system and the engineers were kind enough to leave some physical switch gear as
02:41well so what are all these screens for cars get more optional and mandatory safety systems and driver
02:49assistance systems theoretically some of them could be operated with normal on-off switches but there
02:54would be so many of them the cockpit would be littered with buttons and finding anything
02:59would be as complicated as some infotainment menus are also as options pile up it's easier to have
03:06a screen displaying various features than to design cockpit space for different levels of trim and
03:13leaving blank spaces for example back in the day you'd look inside a porsche and next to the gear lever
03:19you could see how many options the owner skipped also today mandatory safety systems require navigation data so
03:27every car has a screen anyway okay so screens are a result of the mandatory systems but aren't the
03:35displays making driving more dangerous surely all this glare inside the cockpit at night isn't safe
03:40it would seem so however according to an article i found on autoblog link in the description the human
03:47eye reacts differently to different wavelengths on the visible spectrum for example the amber backlight on
03:54the gauge cluster in older bmw models was chosen so as not to strain the eyes at night also red
04:00light is
04:01better for your night vision than other light colors speaking of other colors remember saab and its night
04:06panel at a press of a button most of the cockpit lights would go off leaving just a green speedo
04:13apparently green requires the least intensity to be legible i wonder what were vw engineers thinking
04:20during the blue backlight era in those cars but these were the days of analog gauges and what's the
04:26deal with the screens here the car makers have actually even more opportunity to fine-tune the
04:31wavelength the brightness and the contrast as long as the screen doesn't reflect in the window which
04:36it unfortunately often does and then there's the menu logic or lack thereof if you're not allowed to
04:44use your smartphone while driving clicking through the infotainment system menus also must be distracted
04:50and it sure is as i'm sure owners of new cars with mandatory driver attention warning system found out
04:56isn't it ironic and what if the screen dies when you're driving well this is why there is already talk
05:04of making certain features accessible via physical buttons i'm sure it'll take several years to implement
05:11but there is hope for now regulators preaching safety created a monster screens may be dangerous
05:18but not because of the light okay since everyone should have mandatory driver aids they should also
05:25have digital gauge clusters right so why do recently presented pagani utopia and bugatti tourbillon
05:31have analog gauges okay pagani has a digital screen but it's between the analog speedometer and an
05:37analog odometer do you remember the lexus lfa top gear episode in the show which aired in early 2010
05:45richard hammond said the lfa v10 picks up and drops revs so fast an analog gauge wouldn't be able to
05:52keep
05:52up it sounds like an oversimplification because analog data presentation is not a problem mechanical
05:59transmission of the data would be an issue but for decades the tachometers are electronic regardless of
06:06whether there's an analog gauge or a screen in front of the driver therefore and i do apologize
06:12if this is too much behind the scenes the bugatti tourbillon analog gauges are just theater but
06:21it's oscar-winning acting to sum up yes the screens are necessary especially in mass-produced cars where
06:28there are no exceptions for omitting certain driver aids the screens are also cheaper than designing
06:35different dashboard layouts for different trim levels and what was your first car with a large display
06:42was the new car or a used one did the screen make the car feel modern or outdated was the
06:48screen
06:49working or maybe broke during your time with the car and was it expensive to fix let me know in
06:55the
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