The cockpit of today is fully connected, improves safety and the perfect companion for a digital life. The HARMAN Digital Cockpit com​bines all experiences on one single platform. The platform bundles all strengths of HARMAN’s areas of expertise to create maximum value for OEMs and consumers.

 

There are many foundational elements needed to design and implement a fully functioning digital cockpit of the future. This blog post will provide a brief summary of what was discussed in our podcast or you can listen to it immediately here. 

 

If you think about the digital cockpit of today, it combines many experiences and becomes a part of the digital lifestyle of the user. From HARMAN’s perspective, focusing on the technology stack is important, but not just technology for technology's sake, but technology that can drive a compelling end-user experience. That is the foundational element of everything we do within the digital cockpit business unit at HARMAN—drive technology that drives compelling end-user experiences. 

 

At the same time, when you're in the car, whether you're the driver or the passenger, safety is the main priority. Safety is also one of the key drivers for the digital cockpit of the future. When we talk about bringing in connected experiences, it's not the same connected experience that you enjoy on your mobile phone or sitting in front of your television, for instance. The digital cockpit of the future will entail a level of ADAS integration, whether it's blind spot monitoring, occupant monitoring, and/or driver monitoring to make sure that the driver's paying attention to the road. 

 

We're seeing this now with regulations in Europe, with the Euro end-cap requirements, where in order to get a five-star safety rating, you need to provide a whole host of safety features. Therefore, we anticipate that the digital cockpit will become safer for the occupants in the car, as well as outside. 

 

Looking ahead to a future with autonomous vehicles, consumers must be an active part of the journey. Especially when deploying AV technologies at a mass scale, it’s necessary to focus on what that experience could look like, especially in the critical handover scenarios, as we go from autonomy to giving control back to the driver. 

 

The most successful companies will be the ones who are able to tackle this experience challenge and of course the underlying technology stack to enable a safe, autonomous driving experience.

 

To hear more from me on this topic, listen to this episode of our automotive podcast​.