According to BMW, it takes one second and 28 meters from the time you take your eyes off the road and read 100 km/h on the speedometer. To overcome this distraction, BMW equipped the new 6 Series with a full-color three-dimensional Head-Up display.
The information displays directly in front of your eyes ranges from navigation directions, speed limits, lane departure warnings, Night Vision alerts and check/control messages.
(thanks Cora)
4 comment(s):
How cool is that? I have been thinking about a BMW as a "mid-life crisis" car. This may have sealed the deal. Thanks Gerard.
Actually the way the human brain and eye works together makes that particular BMW "fact" a nonsense. A Marketing crock.
One thing I have found is that your average BMW dash contains far more information than you need. They need to remember that the warning light is king. All you need is a big speedo as close to your line of sight as possible. That way you can take in your speed as your eyes flick about - and they do even though you are not aware of it. Add to that smaller displays giving other information should be arrayed around that. Nice bright warning lights should call your attention to those when needed.
Of course modern tech means you don't even need those dials. When the ECU wants to call your attention to something it can simply replace the speedo display with the necessary information.
HUD may seem like a great idea, but remember pilots don't have to deal with so many mobile obstacles close up as a car driver does. And pilots are specially trained to use them effectively. Hell chopper pilots can even use their eyes separately for targeting - can a BMW driver do that? How long before somebody fails to notice a child running into the road because of their HUD?
But BMW engineers jumped the shark with control systems years ago when they introduced that stupid iDrive system. I you don't know that one it's a menu driven system which is supposed to make it easier to operate your car's on board system, but in fact makes it much more complicated than using simple switches and dials.
Like BMW drivers are looking at these things......... All they are focused on is cutting people off, pulling out in front of people, running red lights, changing lanes back and forth.....
I agree with much of the above. Also, this is nothing new. GM put this option in Corvettes years ago. I'm grateful for the post though.
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