Continental Lands Order for Pillar-to-Pillar Cockpit Display

Continental receives its first major order for a display solution extending across the entire width of the cockpit in a high-volume production vehicle from a global vehicle manufacturer.

By continuing the trend toward larger displays, Continental’s integrated-display solution from one A-pillar to another provides space for a growing number of vehicle functions, digital services and communication and infotainment applications. Volume production is to begin in 2024. Continental has not identified the model or automaker that will get the first application of the new display.

The solution makes the display the central visual interface between the driver, front passenger and digital driving experience and marks another milestone in the evolution of the car into a smart device as part of the internet of things, Continental says in a statement.

Spanning navigation, warning signs, movies, news, social networks, office applications and booking apps to plan the route, the fully immersive content is displayed across the entire width of the cockpit and offers drivers and passengers a completely new user experience, the supplier says.

“A driving experience that is digital and safe is becoming the most distinctive feature of modern cars. The size of the displays and their intuitive operation play a central role here,” Jens Brandt, head of human-machine interface for Continental North America, says in the statement. “In short, while horsepower used to be the gold standard for vehicle differentiation, now it is screen diagonals and user experience.”

Considering the multiple new vehicle functions and digital services going into cars with increasing connectivity, traditional instrument panels and center consoles have become too rigid and inflexible, Continental says. An exclusive focus on the driver also is no longer appropriate for the wide range of communication and infotainment services now available to vehicle occupants. Therefore, displays have been getting bigger and bigger for years.

With a few high-performance computers expected to replace the previous large number of dedicated control units in the future, the pillar-to-pillar display is the next evolutionary step and an expression of the increasing transition of the car into a mobile data center, the supplier says.