Hyundai's Virtual Cockpit Concept Gets Steering-Mounted Touchscreens

Hyundai has recently released its latest study on the future of virtual cockpits in cars, and according to the South Korean carmaker more digital screens is the answer to having a connected and driver-friendly cabin. And this will include touch screen display on the steering wheel instead of buttons or trackpad. Hyundai has designed a concept virtual cockpit, integrating the latest and upcoming technologies in an i30 test car. This virtual cockpit comes with a large central touchscreen display, a digital instrument cluster, and two small touchscreens on the steering wheel right where you find audio and mode buttons on any existing car.

Stating the reason for choosing the Hyundai i30, Regina Kaiser, Human Machine Interface Senior Engineer at Hyundai Motor Europe Technical Centre, said, "We chose the i30 to demonstrate that innovations are not limited to higher-segment vehicles. Hyundai intends to prove that innovations need to be achievable for a broad customer base."

The Hyundai i30 test car came with two touchscreens display on the steering wheel where you'd find buttons

The Hyundai i30 with the new virtual cockpit comes with a new steering wheel that comes with wide bridges one either side to house the two vertical displays. The touchscreen offers the driver controls to the music system, menu and mode change among others. In fact, the display even comes with a new, freely configurable icon design for easier understanding and two actuator modules underneath the surface allowing for a stronger and more consistent haptic feedback which optimises the usability for the driver. Hyundai focused on improving the existing concept of touch displays with haptic feedback on the steering wheel, similar to the centre display. The centre display can be used to control the car's features like climate control, speaker setting and much more.

Hyundai's new Virtual Cockpit also includes a multi-layer display (MLD) for the instrument cluster

As for the instrument cluster, it comes with a multi-layer display (MLD) that is claimed to come with a new, very natural way of attention control. Unlike regular displays, the MLD consists of two displays, which are stacked behind each other at a distance of 6mm that offer visual 3D effects - While one part of the graphic is shown on the front display and the other part on the rear display. In the area where the graphics overlap, the impression of an object in space is created. Regina Kaiser also said that "We are doing research on the learnability, intuition and potential driver distraction of the virtual cockpit." In fact, the company study revealed that Hyundai's new cockpit is significantly below the limits of the globally acknowledged motor vehicle safety associations AAM and NHTSA.

Hyundai says that to date, the company's steering wheels and cockpits have undergone a major development process and the technology continues to evolve. "We are continuously working on new technologies that make our cars perfectly intuitive and user-friendly", said Regina Kaiser. While the cockpit is still in the early prototype stage, the company says that it's nonetheless an important milestone and fairly advanced compared to the existing technology, parts of which we'll be seeing in some of the future models from Hyundai.