Description

The automotive industry is reliant on the infotainment market, as HMI plays a key role in the interaction between users and the vehicle. Key HMI technologies that dominate the mass market include large touchscreen interfaces with touch gestures, hybrid instrument clusters, and connected navigation, to name a few. Although availability of advanced HMI solutions such as air gestures and Heads Up Display (HUDs) is restricted to luxury OEMs, mass-market OEMs are offering value-for-money solutions to entice customers. This study includes OEMs’ current infotainment; multimedia features, output, and input HMI are benchmarked across selected models in their range. The flagship from each OEM’s portfolio is analyzed and its features are listed out. Major HMI trends are analyzed along with their advantages, suppliers, and OEMs adopting the specific technology. Highlights of market participants’ connected services are discussed along with the services offered by each OEM.

What is the future cockpit strategy for luxury market OEMs and what are the best practices followed across their models?
The onset of autonomous cars is set to usher in a new chapter for infotainment and connected services. As drivers have reduced responsibilities and are free to use infotainment services, the role of infotainment in the automobile has increased. OEMs are investing in infotainment and HMI to ensure a smooth transition to an autonomous future. HMI solutions are taking centre stage, as OEMs are looking at converging industries to bring solutions such as augmented reality, virtual assistants, and biometrics. User interface shares the limelight with other HMI, as a seamless experience with minimal lag is the key to ensuring user satisfaction. A simple menu structure with minimal buttons and an intuitive interface is preferred.

Luxury OEMs are also increasing their Research and Development (R&D) efforts to develop precision biometric driver monitoring, customization features using facial and eyelid monitoring, steering inputs, heart rate, and breathing pattern analysis. Increasing focus on authentication, personalization, driver monitoring—autonomous hand over—has flooded the R&D pipeline of OEMs with biometric solutions such as voice, heart rate, facial, iris, and finger print recognition.

This study answers the following questions:
• What are the Human Machine Interface (HMI) solutions adopted by mass market OEMs?
• What are the infotainment solutions by mass market OEMs?
• What are the luxury OEMs’ connected services highlights?
• What are their current offerings in the HMI and infotainment space across their portfolios?
• Which is the champion model in each luxury-market OEM and how are these models differentiating themselves from others in terms of HMI?

Multi Media Information(MMI) is the simplest of the three German haptic controllers. Audi might abandon haptic for a touch-based three display approach in its upcoming A8 and other models to support autonomous scenarios. Command controller has been the central HMI strategy for Mercedes-Benz and for Electric Vehicles (EVs), Mercedes is adopting a full-touch approach (as shown on the EQ concept).