What Will the Dashboards of the Future Look Like?

Modern dashboards may look sleek and dashing on the surface, but pry the plastic back to look behind the digital gauges and multi-color screen, and you’ll find what U.S. auto parts supplier Visteon Corp a ‘rat’s nest.’

Apparently, according to the Detroit-based company, car manufacturers today are so eager to cram their dashboards with as many digital features as possible that these ended up overcrowding the electronics that hold it all together.

Visteon hopes to clean up the clutter of components made by different parts makers that, although hidden from view, only serve to complicate the vehicle’s systems, if not unnecessarily add to the overall weight.

A simpler approach

Visteon is just one of many suppliers who strive to make the dashboard’s inner workings simpler, cheaper and lighter as the global automotive industry moves toward the ‘virtual cockpit,’ an all-digital dashboard that will usher in the self-driving car era.

According to research firm IHS Market, if Visteon succeeds, it could take a sizeable chunk of the billion-dollar cockpit electronics market, which currently stands at $37 billion but is expected to rise to $62 billion by 2022. Meanwhile, accounting firm PwC anticipates that electronics will take up as much as 20 percent of a car’s value in the next two years. That’s a 54-percent increase from a mere 13 percent of the overall vehicle value in 2015.

Meanwhile, demand for multiple parts suppliers could see a reduction as automakers look to work with companies like Visteon, who are capable of doing more.

"The complexity of engineering ten different systems from ten different suppliers is no longer something an automaker wants to do," said Mar Boyadjis, principal automotive analyst at IHS Markit.

Boyadjis predicts that the six to 10 cockpit suppliers that car manufacturers work with today will be reduced to either two or three in the near future.

Visteon’s progress

To address the clutter, Visteon created a computer module they call ‘SmartCore,’ a cockpit domain controller that operates much of the dashboard’s electronics on a tiny piece of silicon.

After unveiling its SmartCore technology last May, Visteon has so far landed two massive contracts, one with China’s Dongfeng Motor Corp., and the other is with Mercedes-Benz. The amount to secure these contracts have not been disclosed.

Visteon added that a third contract is set to be inked with another European automaker. The unnamed soon-to-be partner plans to use Visteon’s system in 2018.