Honda has unveiled a new interior styling and technology concept that is said to have been inspired by the all-new NSX, and which the Japanese manufacturer claims is very close to production.
The newly-conceived dashboard concept aims to highlight three major trends that are emerging and coalescing in contemporary car interior design, namely, electrification, automated driving and connectivity.
Dubbed the “Acura Precision Cockpit”, the prototype system will be evolved into the new interior design for production cars starting in the next few years. Honda says each element of the interior – physical, digital and audio – has been designed by a centralised engineering team.
Fusing an ergonomic design with a new operating system and a touchpad-based interface, the dashboard’s main instrument panel therefore does away with traditional instrument dials.
Instead, there’s a wide, 12.3-inch digital screen, while a matching centre display is placed high in the cabin, close to the driver’s natural line-of-sight; the latter is controlled via a curved touchpad positioned in the centre stack.
When in semi-automated driving mode, the central screen utilises a real-time 3D engine to show a dynamic layout that displays cars, pedestrians, cyclists and other objects recognised by the vehicle’s multiple sensors – even leveraging vehicle-to-vehicle communications and artificial intelligence to visually distinguish between cars that are being autonomously driven and those that are under the control of humans.
Aesthetic details, meanwhile, include the increased use of ‘premium’ materials such as brushed metal, natural wood, leather and Alcantara finishes. There’s also copper amber LED lighting.
The new cockpit design, which was first revealed and demonstrated at the LA Auto Show a couple of weeks ago, complements the exterior design direction revealed earlier this year in the Acura Precision concept car.
The Precision was created by Honda’s California design studio, with the interior design developed under the leadership of John Norman, who also played a key role in the creation of the new NSX.
Source: Honda
