Car Dashboard UI Collection

Nowadays nearly every car manufacturer implements digital dashboards. Here is a collection of some of them.

Denys Nevozhai
6 min readMay 27, 2014

So what’s going on in in-car dashboard design now.

I’m not going to touch infotainment system UI in this article as Teehan+Lax did it before. Instead I’ll focus on instrument panels or clusters usually hidden behind steering wheels that have to be a) informative, b) easy to read, c) well visible under any conditions (e.g. sunny), c) attractive and they shouldn’t distract (e.g. blinding at night).

I’ve seen many beautiful analogue dashboards from various car manufacturers for years. But time goes on and the industry needs to evolve, so nearly every auto maker started adding virtual LCD based dashboards to their cars by variety of reasons such as ability to customise layout and design, ability to switch between different modes, so driver may decide what is important personally for him at the moment, ability to add new functionality and fixing bugs by firmware upgrade and just because it’s modern and cool. First attempts seen in concept cars are something out of this world, these dashboards are impossible to read because of extraterrestrial fonts, WTF indicators, acid backlight, projected on multiple layers of glass data, etc. At the same time first production digital dashboards were skeuomorphic (resembled analogue gauges) and looked not that bad, but in most cases certainly could be improved by increasing screen resolution, fixing fonts, improving icons, spaces, etc. More modern production designs that tend to take after concept car dashboards still look lame in most cases, overloaded with distracting elements with no meaning. Overall there is a huge opportunity in in-car UI design now.

Collection of modern digital dashboards.

Is it a budget Ford? No, it’s Aston Martin DB9 Hybrid.
Audi A6 E-Tron Concept 2012
Audi Sport Quattro 2014 Concept
Audi Quattro 2014 Concept. Resembles motorcycle instrument cluster layout.
Audi TT 2014 Concept based on NVIDIA Tegra engine.
Crazy, isn’t it?
BMW Vision Connected Drive 2011 Concept
BMW Future Vision Concept 2014
BMW i8 Spyder Concept. What the fuck is at the right?
BMW i8 Concept. I guess BMW decided not to overload driver with useful data and just made cool looking graphics.
BMW i8 UX Video
BMW i8 Production version looks much more easy to understand.
BMW i3
BMW 7 Eco Mode
BMW 7 Comfort Mode
BMW 7 Sport Mode
Futuristic Cadillac El Mirage designed by Bradley Munkowitz. More pics are here.
Cadillac El Mirage
https://vimeo.com/86358683
Cadillac CTS 2014
Chevrolet Corvette 2014
Chevrolet Spark
Ferrari F12 Berlinetta
Ford Focus
Hyundai Intrado 2014 Concept
Infinity Essence Concept. Steam Punk!
Infinity LE Concept
Jaguar C-X75 Concept
Jaguar XJR 2014. MSRP from $116000
KIA GT Concept 2014
KIA K900 2015
$1.5M Koenigsegg Agera 2011. The only association is a pinball machine.
Lamborghini Aventador
Lamborghini Reventon
Lexus LFA
Lexus LFA
Lexus LF-CC Concept
Lexus LF-LC Concept
Lexus LF-NX 2014 Concept
Mercedes Benz S-Class 2014 Concept
Mercedes Benz S-Class Coupe 2014 Production
Mercedes Benz S65 AMG Coupe 2014 Production
Mini Cooper Vision 2013 Concept
Mini Superleggera Vision 2014 Concept
Nissan Leaf
Peugeot 908 RC Concept
Porsche 918 Spyder
Range Rover
Revolutionary Tesla Model S
Tesla Model S
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hVd_ABhNBA
Volkswagen Up Lite 2009 Concept
Volkswagen Cross Blue Coupe Concept
Volvo V40
Volvo Concept Estate 2014 Concept
Volvo XC-90 Production

A bit of history

Aston Martin Lagonda Concept
The first application of an electronic instrument cluster, in a production automobile — Aston Martin Lagonda 1976 Production
Cadillac Seville with optional computer 1978. How to use it.
Chevrolet Corvette 1984
Honda S2000 — 1999

More history is here.

Bonus.

Beautiful Ford 012C 1999 Concept by Marc Newson

Well-known designer @Abduzeedo has analogue dashboard collection.

Faux BMW dashboard design.

And finally taking an opportunity showcasing my own attempt of dashboard design for BMW electric vehicle. During design I kept in mind core principles listed above as well as style inheritance which is essential for conservative BMW fans.

BMW Dashboard design by Denys Nevozhai

More pictures on my Behance page.

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