Hey folks Brian Cooley here from On Cars I got one of your emails about high tech cars and modern drivings this one's comes from Chris S who wants to know about lcd instrument things.
In the last episode of On Cars you mentioned LCD coming on to instrument panels in the big web, why don't automakers use OLED, organic light-emitting diode tech for these displays.
Well Chris good point I actually meant LCD and the coming all that.
I should have said that.
His whole idea of these addressable pixel displays are starting to really change what's happening in the dashboard and give us a very different look.
So whether it's light emitting diode or organic light emitting diode They are part of the future.
Take a look at the things that we've seen from [UNKNOWN] recently, one of the biggest suppliers to car makers.
And they're not the only company that is pushing hard to say, hey we've got the tech car makers let's start putting it in your dashboards to get rid of swinging needles.
and little glowing idiot lights.
It's going to be a fascinating future.
Now, there are some reasons that it'll be so great in cars.
One is it's a thinner technology.
Really thin.
Almost paper thin.
And that's a good thing, because it allows for better packaging.
The dashboard is tight.
It's full of so many components these days that literally saving a couple of millimeters in thickness compared to gauges, or even compared to LCD Matters to the engineers out there.
It also uses less energy, OLED does.
It's known for this in televisions, for example.
Using less energy also means you throw off less heat which are both wins for car makers because their electrical systems are really strained these days with the amount of tech we're putting into cars And heat trapped in the dash is always the enemy of durability.
It tends to cook things and make them fail sooner.
Oled's gonna help in that direction in two ways.
Oled's also known as being flexible.
It's great flexible substrate that allows you to make these curved kind of multi contoured displays.
We see them all the time on the auto show circuit.
On concept cars and they never come to the showroom.
And the last thing is touch.
And this can be a little tricky on Oled, it's not that it's impossible, there are phones that are on the market that are Oled touch displays.
But in the car space, you wanna make sure you're using resistive touch usually.
That's the kind of touch where you have to press with a little bit of pressure.
It's considered a cruder technology in many circles, however it's good for the car, because it works if you've got a glove on, for example in cold weather.
That's different from capacitive touch, which most of our advanced smartphones have, which is much more nuanced.
You barely have to touch the screen, and it also supports multi touch now.
Some cars do that now but in general they like a little more robust, simple, resistent touch.
And all of this is done by a separate touch layer, sandwiched on front of the old LED display.
That means they want that ouch layer to be very thin so it doesn't obviate the benefits of OLED being thin in the first place So these are some of the challenges and benefits, but let's absolutely gonna revolutionize the dash board in less than the next decade.
You'll be amazed what you see in front of you when you drive
