With so many different settings available on modern vehicles for functions such as suspension, transmission, and steering, carmakers and their suppliers have resorted to grouping such functions for convenience.
Ralf Lenninger, Vice President of strategy and research at Continental's Interior division used a camera metaphor to explain their approach. "Today's most sophisticated digital cameras use preconfigured settings for portrait, landscape, and macro so the photographer can 'point and shoot' and always achieve optimal results. Simplify Your Drive gives drivers the same convenient way to configure their vehicle for the desired driving situation."
While many other carmakers already offer these Comfort, Normal, and Sport settings, Continental may have the most appealing system yet by including some HMI (Human Machine Interface) pizzazz through reconfigurable displays and force feedback.
Hit the jump for more information and a nice movie in German, Ja.
In the Comfort setting, Conti wants you to feel like you're sitting in a lounge, with cool blue meters and ambient lighting. The meters show just the basics and the other HMI is also simple. The suspension and engine shift points are tuned for maximum comfort, and the ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control) and Lane Departure Warning systems are automatically activated so you can relax and enjoy the drive.
Sport mode of course firms up the suspension and steering and increases the engine shift points, but the instruments also change to round virtual gauges, with shift indicator lights that evoke a Formula 1 car. There's also a dot in the center of the tach which moves, indicating changes in lateral and longitudinal acceleration. Finally, some active force feedback is provided through the accel pedal, making it feel as though the return spring is stiffer, and with higher acceleration gain.
Eco mode changes the meters to green, with a glowing circle in the center that grows with hypermile-like driving. With continued eco-operation, a pea is sent to the cluster of leaves to make them grow. Most interestingly, during Eco-mode the accel pedal pushes back on the foot, making it difficult to conduct full throttle acceleration.
These settings could conceivably linked to other features such as Navigation, where the Eco route would use the least fuel, Comfort would be normal or fastest route, and Sport would take you on serpentine roads.
The system we tried last week on the German Autobahn worked fine and it was entertaining to switch modes on our brief drive. The functional differentiation between the modes was clearer than other current systems due to the HMI of the meters and accel pedal haptic feedback.
Simplify Your Drive is a prototype system that exemplifies the desire of carmakers to personalize the driving experience and could be tuned further to the needs of the carmaker customer. And who might that be?
One potential customer may be China's Dongfeng Motor, which displayed a Simplify your Drive demo vehicle at the 2010 Beijing show.
Start of production for Simplify Your Drive is expected to be in 2012 or 2013.
Albert Austria, Senior Engineer, Edmunds, Inc.
throwback says:
01:27 PM, 06/21/10
I would love a reconfigurable IP. Sometimes I just want the basics, speed and fuel for instance. Especially at night, one of the reasons I love the night panel button in my Saab.