Instrument Cluster
- Thread starter Chaparral
- Start date
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@Chaparral may have touched on this a little already. Scout is trying to combine old school and new school. To me it would be cool if the battery range indicator looked like a fuel gauge with a needle, and then maybe distance till empty somehow incorporated as well. Something like this? Where it says Fuel under the gauge say Range instead with the miles left?
I think the fuel gauge could be used for the Scouts with harvester and the Battery one on this picture could be used as an efficiency gage to trend miles per KW.
I may be going against the grain here on this, but the instrument cluster is my least favorite design choice.
Nothing against a digital cluster or the UI of it. That looks great, but rather the housing. I had a rental that had basically that same physical setup. Where it looks like they slapped a tablet behind the steering wheel.
It conveyed a kind of cheap, just throw in a tablet there feel. Maybe it's just me.
My perfect scenario would be a digital cluster but house in a traditional frame, yes I know you'll lose some screen real estate on the corners but to me it looks more intended and part of the dash.
Nothing against a digital cluster or the UI of it. That looks great, but rather the housing. I had a rental that had basically that same physical setup. Where it looks like they slapped a tablet behind the steering wheel.
It conveyed a kind of cheap, just throw in a tablet there feel. Maybe it's just me.
My perfect scenario would be a digital cluster but house in a traditional frame, yes I know you'll lose some screen real estate on the corners but to me it looks more intended and part of the dash.
Generally I agree but seeing it in person and knowing it has the linear-esq feel like the old Scout dashes it didn’t bother me. And ironically the UX screen would normally bug me for the same reasons but the little tricks with design just made it work
I’m gonna have to disagree here. That would take away from the retro vibe. All the numbers should be larger but not change.
You could be right. This discussion makes me rejoice that I'm not a new product designer. They're working magic in a million different ways to create a new vehicle and we're trying to work out the look of the speedometer! *grin* For sure I hope that Scout Motors implements a good drug and alcohol recovery support program for this team!
This is EXACTLY how a Tesla feels to me... Just slap a tablet there. It does look cheap, but I would imagine the "floating tablet" is easy to fix and easier for other maintenance or service purposes, but just a guess.
Good news is that Rivian did a great job using their screens (and making them feel well-integrated and NOT cheap) and Scout seems to be taking design cues, so we'll see.
The industry is using easily confused units for measuring battery capacities and power etc.
‘Miles per kilowatt’ makes as much sense as saying ‘miles per horsepower’. Zero sense.
‘Miles per kilowatt-hour” does make sense. But only because that’s the units of energy with which electricity is usually sold. The standard unit of energy is the joule. 1 kilowatt-hour = 3,600,000 joules. If there’s an efficiency gauge, the user should be able to choose between seeing units of miles per kilowatt-hour or miles per MJ.
What about the so-called “state of charge”? The proper unit for electric charge is the coulomb (C). For a certain voltage, that’s the equivalent to how much gas is in the tank. I believe gauges should always have units. A gas gauge should have the number of gallons written at a few of the ticks. So perhaps a state of charge gauge should have the estimated number of usable coulombs of charge? The problem with this is that how much energy is represented by one coulomb depends on the voltage and battery voltage changes as the battery is depleted. At 800V, 1 Kilowatt-hour is equivalent to 4,500 coulombs but system voltage will probably vary between about 840V when fully charged and as low as 600V when the battery needs to be charged. I’d love to have both a battery voltage gauge (V) and a battery charge gauge (C) to geek out over. However, individually both these gauges would be of limited value, the driver would actually have to multiple the reading of one gauge by the reading of the other. Why? Because when you multiply volts by coulombs you get energy in joules! So if there is one so-called “state of charge” gauge to indicate what is left in the battery, it should be the one that automatically multiplies voltage (V) and charge (C) and its units would be megajoules (MJ) or optionally kilowatt-hours. But this isn’t technically a “state of charge”, it a measure of the usable energy available in the battery and should properly be called an energy gauge.
I’d also like to be able to see what’s happening at each of the two motors, either the current (in amps) being drawn or regenerated or power (in watts).
Why do I feel like Marty McFly having time travel explained to him by Dr. Emmett Brown?
Any of these idea on this sample image works for anyone?
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Just thought I would add that my BMW iX displays kW per hour when parked or stationary and then switches to miles per kWh when moving. I think that’s inline with what you’re saying.
I'm assuming the max speed shown as an indicator at 65 changes depending on the speed for that highway.
i was thinking the needle would change to a different color to indicate speed set for cruise control / adaptive cruise control
Assuming head up display I will rarely use the gauge as head up is SO convenient
Yes, the number must be much larger and narrower to fit the old style. As is they are hard to read.
The width of the new gauge is also too wide. It should be just a bit narrower to make it easier to read.
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