It’s hard to miss the most unusual feature on the 2000 Toyota Echo: The instrument pod. Instead of being behind the steering wheel, it’s toward the middle of the dash–like a bump on a log.
Toyota sees this as innovative and a help to drivers, but it is probably the most controversial move in automotive interior design this year.
However innovative it might be, there are those who say that the design is not original, pointing out that the Morris and Austin Minis had gauges in the center of the dashboard when they were introduced in 1959. The reason was for the ease of manufacturing cars in both right- and left-hand-drive. The switch was made to an instrument cluster behind the steering wheel in the early 1970s as an interior styling update.
Automakers are divided (or coy) about whether we are going to see a mass migration of instrument pods to the center of the dash. They have vastly different ideas about why designers and engineers are implementing the concept and disagree about whether it’s a good idea.
Though Toyota is describing the instruments as center-mounted, they are a bit off-center. They are to the right of the driver–closer to the driver than to the passenger–and angled toward the driver.
The Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid, which is coming to the U.S. in the summer and has been on sale in Japan since December 1997, also comes with the center-mounted instrument panel. So does the Toyota Yaris, on which the Echo is based, the Vista and the Nadia. In those vehicles the instruments are mounted in the center and face straight back.
Renault is using a similar concept in its Espace, Twingo 2 and Avantime, which will go on sale in Europe toward the end of 2000.
Toyota says it’s using this design because the visual angle of the instrument panel reduces eye stress and strain.
Placing the instrument cluster higher up in the instrument panel, as in the Echo, reduces what human factors engineers call “eyes off the road time,” said Dave Benedict, general manager for Vehicle Evaluation II at the Toyota Technical Center in Torrance, Calif.
“You can be looking pretty much straight ahead and just doing short glances to the meter cluster,” he said.
Benedict said researchers measured “glance time” and compared how much time the driver’s eyes were looking at the road, compared to the displays in different positions, and found that drivers spent less time glancing at the the center-mounted instrument pod.
And though Toyota says the Echo is aimed primarily at young drivers, center-mounted instruments reduces eye stress and strain, a benefit for older drivers.
As we age, we have more trouble with accommodation–the ability to adjust our eyes quickly as we switch from looking at something far away to something close up, said Toyota’s Benedict, “which is why we sometimes need bifocals.”
By center-mounting the instruments a little farther from the driver than they are when in their traditional position, the driver doesn’t have to change focus so much, which reduces accommodation.
However, Ford Motor Co. ergonomics engineers believe center-mounted instruments force drivers to take their eyes off the road longer than if they were glancing down at the instruments in their traditional position behind the steering wheel, said Wes Sherwood, emerging technologies public affairs manager.
Ford ergonomics engineers say there is a trade-off between possible benefits in reducing eye strain and the disadvantages of increased “eyes-off-the-road time.” Ford engineers don’t think the benefit is worth this trade-off.
Saturn engineers, however, agree with Toyota.
“If you talk to the engineers and the human factors people, they think there’s some benefit,” said Tom Wilkinson, product publicity manager for Saturn Corp. “It does two things: If you can put the panel out in the center of the (instrument pod), you can actually scan the gauges more easily. It’s a little bit more in your natural sight line as you are scanning back and forth in front of the vehicle and then it’s usually a little bit farther away from your eyes so that you don’t have to change focus so much.”
No government regulations dictate where instruments must be placed. The only caveat is that the driver must be able to see and operate them. And Toyota’s Benedict says there is no safety concern about the center instrument display.
The reason an instrument such as the speedometer, tachometer or warning light is in front of the driver is “because under normal circumstances that’s the safest place for it to be,” said Carl Olsen, chairman of the transportation design department at the Center for Creative Studies School of Art and Design in Detroit. “Your eyes are taken off the road less time–we’re talking about milliseconds–than if you’re moving your head over to the center of the car to look at the instruments there.”
“If your (instrument panel) is designed to accommodate right- or left-hand-drive, then having it in the center makes sense because of the tooling investment. If you can save the cost of doing special instrument panels for right- and left-hand-drive and just have minor alterations to accommodate whether the steering wheel is on the left or right, it will save millions and millions of dollars.
“The only thing I can say is if it isn’t done for the reason of being able to have an interchangeable panel with a minimum of investment, then it’s done for fashion, because someone liked the style.”
Fashion did play a role in Toyota’s decision, company officials acknowledge.
“The interior designers are always looking for something that is new and innovative to make the vehicle stand out, particularly for our younger buyers who tend to like things that are new and different,” said Benedict.
Though industry analysts mention the reason for center-mounting instruments is ease of manufacturing the vehicle for right- and left-hand-drive, Toyota says that is not the reason for mounting the instruments in the center. Besides, Echo’s instruments aren’t in the center and are angled toward the driver.
But a Renault executive said the French automaker adopted the center-mounted design for reasons that are at somewhat at odds with Toyota’s.
A Renault executive said the design lets the driver share the information with all the passengers and because this architecture also facilitates the conversion from left- to right-hand-drive.
Reduction of eye stress was not really the initial reason for Renault’s center-mounted instrument panels, said Tchie Feuillerat, of Renault Press International Coordination.
Whether we are going to see more center-mounted instrument panels in Toyotas depends on whether the chief engineer for each vehicle decides it is appropriate.
“I can’t say there is a company direction that we are going to go more to center displays; it’s up to the individual chief engineer to make that decision,” said Benedict.
DaimlerChrysler won’t discuss it, “because it might give away where we might be going. We don’t want to talk about future products,” said Sjoerd Dijkstra, senior manager of design programs.
Ford is not ruling out center-mounted instrument panels, said Sherwood. But if it uses them it would be for the engineering simplicity and cost benefits of designing one vehicle in right- and left-hand-drive versions for international sales.
When BMW brings out the new Mini in Europe for 2001 it will have center-mounted gauges, according to “industry sources.” BMW said last month that the quirky little car also is destined for U.S. sales.
Saturn has a center-mounted instrument panel in the CV1, one of five General Motors concept vehicles being introduced at auto shows this year. But many, if not most, of the fantastical interiors in concept vehicles never make it into production.
The center-mounted instrument panel on the CV1 faces straight back so the passenger and driver can have access to the same information.
“One of the philosophies of Saturn is this notion of a friendly vehicle,” said Wilkinson. “So there’s a tendency to try to not exclude the passenger. It’s not like Oldsmobile or Pontiac, where everything is angled toward the driver.”
“It’s one of those things that we’re really intrigued by, but we don’t know if customers would like it or not,” said Wilkinson. “You show it to customers in clinics, and it’s one of those head-scratchers. They say, `Well, gee, I don’t know if I would like that or not.’
“So a lot of things on the CV1 are designed to get exposure for things that we think might be neat ideas for future products. We think it’s one of those ideas people might warm up to, but then again they might not. A concept car is a great way to explore that.”
“I’m not sure there is a major trend toward locating the (instrument panel) in the center, though it’s significant that the two companies which have embraced the idea are considered to be on the cutting edge of car design here,” said Richard Feast, a free-lance writer who specializes in the international automotive industry, based in England, and editor-at-large for Automotive World. “Most cars sold here (in Europe) are utterly conventional in terms of interior layouts. Some are better than others, but I am struck by how little interiors have changed in the past 20 or 30 years.”
While engineers debate whether a center-mounted instrument panel is safer than one directly in front of the driver, the dashboard began as somewhat of a safety device itself.
Around the turn of the century to the 1900s, the dashboard was a board against which pebbles from the road were dashed to keep drivers and passengers from being hit, according to the book “The Automobile: A Century of Progress.” Later, automakers began adding instruments to that panel. First they were close to the driver’s feet, which puts controversy over center-mounting in perspective.
