Author: Asia

Yesterday, Tesla held a small internal communication meeting in Shanghai to discuss Tesla's interior design concept.

When the new Mercedes-Benz S was criticized by the industry because the interior design was too cutting-edge, the time arranged by Tesla for this communication meeting was a bit interesting. Actually, it is understandable that Tesla's interior design has been misunderstood by the outside world for so many years. At this time, Big Brother Mercedes-Benz began to line up for himself. At this time, "setting things right" is simply procrastination.

So, what did Tesla say about the interior design this time?

1, the source of design first principle

At the beginning of the communication meeting, Liu Yang, who is in charge of Tesla's training, threw us a view that there is absolutely no simple underlying logic behind Tesla's minimalist interior.

This sentence sounds like an external defense, but it is actually to extend his detailed interpretation of Tesla's minimalist interior design style.

Tesla's interior design concept can be summed up in one sentence: starting from the first principle, abandon all the established layout forms and complex designs of fuel vehicle interior, and define a brand-new automobile interior form with more advanced interactive technology. Simply put, it is to subvert the existing interior design style.

So how to subvert and what are the guiding principles? Yes-the first principle is the core of understanding Tesla's design.

Regarding the first principle, most people in the automobile circle will be unfamiliar, and people in the internet circle may be familiar with it. Its theoretical exposition is: to see through the essence of things, we must decompose things into the most basic components and solve problems from the source.

In addition, because the first principle is the only source of things, its logical value is also considered to be more advanced than the law of causality.

Still obscure?

We can give an example. For example, according to the law of causality, automobile interior design must have a steering wheel and a gear handle, which is generally recognized by everyone, in fact, by OEM engineers, and more importantly, the supply chain of various parts is also constructed in this way.

But from the actual needs, that is, from the first-principles analysis, these are actually biased.

For example, the gear handle, who stipulates that the gear handle must be placed on the auxiliary center console? In other words, do automatic cars and electric cars have to have gears? The answer is obviously no.

From the technical principle, the existence of automatic gearshift is actually to give an "electrical signal" through physical action, which is the same for electric vehicles. In this case, if you remove the gear and send an electrical signal in other ways, as long as you can hang the gear, won't the result be the same? It's just different means

This is also the reason why Mercedes-Benz developed gear, in fact, it is to think about the value of gear in essence. As for other places in the interior, they are all the same and can be redesigned, such as the dashboard and center console.

As for why everyone is unwilling to change this inherent idea of interior design for so many years, it is actually the benefit. As mentioned above, the existence of gear is not only everyone's cognitive habit, but also the "rice bowl" of parts suppliers. Will they be happy if you don't block them? Definitely not.

Except the handlebar, other parts are the same, and the complicated supply chain system makes the speed of automobile design change extremely slow. For this kind of "breaking the rules" and overthrowing the old supply chain, the general car companies can't do it. At present, only two car companies can do it.

First, Tesla and BYD, who have always been smart, have long used large-screen designs, perhaps "green", so they have been criticized for a long time. Then there is Mercedes-Benz, which never rejects embracing change. Maybe it's a big shot in the circle, so the industry just started to say hehe, and then it really smells good. Don't be too realistic

2, simple, not simple

Explain the guiding ideology of the first principle first, and then look at the details of the design, which is much easier to understand.

From a macro perspective, interior design is actually hardware and software. The hardware is divided into dashboard area and center console area, and the software is vehicle-mounted system.

At present, there are three schemes for hardware:

First, the dashboard and center console will be merged, represented by Mercedes-Benz and Tucki.

Second, cancel the big dashboard, arrange the small dashboard, and then the center console, represented by BYD and Weilai.

Third, cancel the dashboard and only use the center console. This scheme is currently only used by Tesla.

It is not difficult to see that Tesla's plan is more radical than the previous two. It is difficult to draw a conclusion as to whether the concept is more advanced or the technology is more advanced. However, in terms of directly canceling the instrument panel, it did cause controversy about Tesla's interior design.

In this regard, Tesla may feel aggrieved because it did not really cancel the dashboard, but transplanted it to the central control screen.

In fact, Tesla just canceled the mechanical part of the dashboard, and the software part is still there. They are set in the left area of the central control display screen, including information such as speed and power. Although the mechanical part of the dashboard is cancelled, the function is still there, which conforms to the first principle.

Although it seems a bit hasty to cancel the dashboard directly, there are many practical benefits, better vision and more spacious space. From Tesla model? Judging from the huge sales volume, this design is also acceptable to everyone.

Look at the central control panel, which is the essence of Tesla's interior design. The importance of canceling other hardware and keeping only this one can be seen. In this regard, we continue to discuss it from two dimensions: hardware and software.

In the hardware part, it is not just a big screen, but actually involves all aspects. For example, rigidity, the car is a moving object, which requires high swing of parts, and the model? 3' s central control large screen is hard connected to the center console, which is consistent with the swing amplitude of the car body and safer.

According to Liu Yang, if the rotating design is adopted, there is bound to be a gap. With the long-term swing and mechanical fatigue of the car, this range will become larger and larger, on the one hand, it will produce noise, on the other hand, it is not safe.

Another example is life expectancy. The life span of an ordinary home computer display screen is about 3-5 years, but what is the model? The service life of the central control large screen is 15 years, which is the same as that of cars and far exceeds that of ordinary screens.

In addition, after exposure in summer, the temperature inside the car will be very high, especially the position of the center console, which requires that the large screen inside the car must be resistant to high temperature. After careful matching by Tesla engineers, model? The working temperature of the central control panel is -30℃~70℃, far exceeding the ordinary screen.

In the software part, according to Liu Yang, Tesla HMI (Man-Machine Interaction System) is designed according to the safety principle of giving priority to the driver's driving vision, the information priority principle of giving priority to displaying information related to the driver's safety height, and the information visualization principle.

Let's focus on information first. Models? 3? The interactive design divides the 15 inch screen into three areas: driving information area, content switching area and shortcut menu area. The system assigns the menu priority according to the frequency of use, and the more related to driving safety, the simpler and more direct it is.

Among them, the driving information area is the most critical, bearing the important information of the original dashboard, and is arranged on the left side closest to the driver's line of sight, presenting key information including speed, gear, vehicle state, Autopilot automatic assisted driving and so on, with the highest priority.

Last month, we tested the imported models? 3. The feeling at that time was that the instrument screen was saved, all kinds of buttons were saved, and the center console was symmetrical. How much mold opening fee did you save? Models? Low cost is not unreasonable.

But Liu Yang told me, you can't do that. There is little space above, but the screen is expensive. After all, it is at the level of car regulations. Although it is a minimalist interior design, the cost is not less than that of traditional interior design. (End)

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.