One-day prophet: Smart cockpit = mobile game room

Great companies are always market leaders, not followers. On the one hand, they seize the first opportunity and occupy the market high ground; on the other hand, in today's abundant material world, people consume more to satisfy their spiritual needs and supplement their "personality". As long as the signboard is shiny and impressive enough, even if the product has some bugs, it can attract consumers to compete to become "leeks".

Recently, foreign media exposed a new patent applied for by Tesla, one of which involves seat rotation.

As shown in the picture above, the front seats can be rotated 180 degrees backwards, and the steering wheel can be moved to the driver's hand. Through such adjustments, the driver can communicate face to face with the rear passengers. During the trip, the driver is no longer isolated, and can play games with other passengers, or play cards and eat melon seeds, which fully meets his social needs. Although some netizens complain that such a design is still useless at present, it is obviously an early layout for the future highly or fully automated driving scenarios, and this "future" may be around the corner.

#Product Design's "Boss"#

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, once said: "It is very difficult to design products based on the needs of the public. Because in many cases, people don't know what they want."

From canceling the dashboard, to canceling physical buttons, to canceling the gear lever, Tesla seems to have completely implemented Apple's ideas in product design, taking drastic steps to "not recognize any relatives".

So the question is, what do users need in Tesla’s mind?

Here the editor boldly speaks up and becomes a prophet for a day: a game console!

Yes, you read it right. From PCs, smartphones to smart TVs in the living room, have all smart devices become "game consoles"? Humans who "die for entertainment" will hardly miss any time to entertain themselves. So when autonomous driving technology is fully mature, it goes without saying what humans will do with the fragmented time in the car.

On the one hand, there is the vast market demand. On the other hand, the continuous update requirements of games for hardware and software, as well as the technological halo that it brings to the brand, make it a profitable business no matter how you look at it.

Let’s take a look at some clues about Tesla’s gaming layout.

Evidence 1: The cabin design of the new generation Model S/X

The horizontal 17-inch display can be tilted at a small angle left or right to improve convenience when gaming;

The yoke-type steering wheel eliminates the obstruction of the upper view and encourages users to use driving assistance;

Eliminating the physical gear lever forces users to liberate themselves and rely more on the intelligent driving system;

An independent LCD screen has been added to the rear row, and pictures on the official website show that it can provide a gaming interface;

Supports wireless Bluetooth connection to the controller, so you can play games in all seats in the car

Evidence 2: The computing power of automotive chips continues to increase

The new generation Model S/X chip has a computing power of 10 TOPS reserved for the entertainment system, which is lower than the 3 TOPS of the current "most powerful entertainment host chip" Qualcomm 8155. It is said that Cyberpunk 2077 can be played in the car.

In order to solve the problem of weak performance of automotive chips, Tesla has chosen the path of self-developed chips since HW3.0, and its computing power has been directly increased from 12 TOPS of HW2.5 to a maximum of 144 TOPS, and the upcoming HW4.0 is expected to reach 300+ TOPS computing power. Well, what else can I say? In the field of car entertainment systems, later manufacturers can only look up to it.

Evidence 3: Last August, Tesla’s recruitment information for a “video game engineer” attracted widespread attention, and it was described as follows: “Tesla is committed to making the most interesting cars, and introducing video game experience into the vehicle will help increase the fun. We are looking for an active software engineer to help us build a video game platform so that our cars can provide the best video game content.”

Musk himself is an absolute game fanatic. He developed a game called Blaster when he was 12 years old. He once publicly stated: "Part of the reason why I became interested in technology may be because of video games. If it weren't for games, I might not have started programming and I wouldn't be so interested in computer technology. I think games are a very powerful force to get children interested in technology, and the chain reaction it brings is much greater than people realize."

The key point here: Chinese parents let their children play games more often

With the rapid development of technology and the rapid layout of the industry, the smart cockpit is now more concrete around user experience and the relationship between people and cars. I can't help but sigh that the future always comes earlier than we think.

Finally, I still hope that domestic brands will not just fight for reputation, but grow into rule makers based on a true understanding of consumer psychology, so as to achieve overtaking.