Evolution of In Car Entertainment [INFOGRAPHIC ALERT]

Modified On Oct 20, 2015 01:49 PM By Raunak

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In-car entertainment systems are fast becoming a need rather than a luxury add-on. Apart from playing music, nowadays, they do all sorts of stuff from things like taking you to the desired location to giving your instantaneous vehicle info. But since they were incorporated in the first place for the sake of playing music, they still do the same but it's just how you play it has changed!

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It all started with the first ever commercially successful Motorola 5T71, Galvin brothers’ of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation invented it and named it Motorola. Yes, you’re right it all started with a car radio, that’s how they coined the name Motorola. As I have told you all this adds to the opulence of the car, indeed this Motorola radio costed $ 130 in 1930 after inflation nearly $ 1,800!

AM dominated the scenario but after the World War II, FM took over the AM in radio broadcasting, as a preferred choice. And in 1952, Blaupunkt introduced the first in-car FM radio. Till date, AM struggles with FM and others like the satellite and the internet over radio broadcasting.

In-Car Entertainment Milestones Over the Years!

Around 1970, Cassettes brought the boom in the in-car entertainment systems and also shoot up the aftermarket audio system industry. Cassettes also brought the best thing in the world that time - mixed tapes. People can make their own playlist, that was an astonishing thing that time!

In early 90's CD's - compact discs have started to overshadow the low capacity and lazy cassette player. CDs brought added advantage with them, like, you can change the track instantaneous (remember we have to rewind and forward to change songs in cassettes) along a plethora of space to store your songs. Moreover, then came the multiple CD changers, a multi-disc changer were usually located under your seat or in the trunk! However, the era of CD players were very small compared to cassette players.

Coming to the present day, even the cheapest cars nowadays come with a touchscreen infotainment system that also offers satellite navigation. Yes, they are now known as 'Infotainment (information+entertainment) System' rather than an audio system; as they provide vital vehicle information and comes with host of music and video playback options. These touchscreens units have completely ravished the short-lived era of CD players. Most of the manufacturers even have started not to offer a CD playback in their units, because people hardly use CDs anymore!

And in 2012, Tesla Motors have showed what the future of vehicle cabin will look like. The Model S debuted with an exorbitant 17-inch high definition infotainment touch display - the largest display ever in a car! It was also the first car to use NVIDIA’s Tegra processors, backing up the computing for the large display.

Moreover, the Model S also had the very first 12.3-inch virtual cockpit display, Volkswagen Group has also started to offer it.

Yup, that’s our next stuff to discuss, things nowadays are not just ending up with the infotainment systems. The info system are working with the digital instrumentation cluster so all the essential details are projected straight into the instrumentation cluster and for that matter to the head-up display! For eg, the navigation data is projected onto the virtual cockpit (see the image down below).

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Wondering, what could be the future of in-car entertainments, considering the present seems like something from a Sci-Fi movie? Last year, Audi showcased the Prologue concept at the 2014 Los Angeles, you know what it had, the entire front panel of the dashboard is touch screen display - it featured a curved OLED touchscreen!

Imagine what all sort of stuff we can do with it, getting bored with your dash, you might be able to change its appearance, just like we change the wallpaper of our mobile screen!

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