Road Testing Lincoln's Massive Panoramic Dashboard Display video - CNET

Road Testing Lincoln's Massive Panoramic Dashboard Display

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Speaker 1: Your, I've noticed E that is a 48 inch ultra wide mega screen in the dashboard of the car, one of the biggest screens that I've seen in a production vehicle. The vehicle today is the 2024 Lincoln Nautilus. Let's pull over and get a closer look, shall we? So what we have here is Lincoln's panoramic display. It is a 48 inch screen that stretches almost from pillar to pillar across the entirety of the dashboard. Though if you look [00:00:30] closely, you'll see that it's actually two screens. There is a theme in the middle, not that that really matters much. Now basically this whole thing functions like a digital instrument cluster on steroids. Everything that would be in a digital instrument pod is now spread out across the dashboard with large tech so that you can see it a little easier here in front of me. We've got our speed information and driver assistance when those features are active. Speaker 1: Just to the right we have navigation when you're doing turn by turn directions, and then over on the [00:01:00] right hand side of the screen we have three panels that are customizable to display things like Currently we've got the currently playing song, our Instant Fuel Economy in a Trip Computer. Now this screen is pretty far away. I can't really touch it. So how do you interact with these customizable features? Well, if you look a little bit further down, you'll see that we also have a more conventional 11.1 inch touchscreen display. That's a pretty easy reach for the driver and the passenger here, you can pop into a menu [00:01:30] and then drag and drop panels onto that upper screen to customize what you want to see. So I've added the clock and I've added the weather up there. You can also customize the theme of the upper display in a menu. Speaker 1: In the settings you've got a couple of different themes to choose from. My favorite are the inspire that's got sort of a mountainy ocean and constellation, which looks a little bit like a sort of a cosmic cloud, but there are more minimalist options if you feel like those are too distracting. [00:02:00] And of course, if all of this is just too much stimulation for you, you can also activate a call mode with a single toggle and that turns off all the information on the display except for the bare minimum, your speedometer driver aid information and any warning light. Now, underneath all of these bells and whistles is a Android powered operating system with Google builds. In. That means that in the dashboard we've got the Google Play Store that you can use to download audio streaming apps. We've got Google Assistant for your voice control, and we've also got [00:02:30] Google Maps for navigation. Speaker 1: Of course, apple Car Play and Android Auto are built in with wireless connectivity. If you'd prefer to power this by your own phone. As is the Alexa voice assistant though, I find that Android Auto is actually the best one because it uses Google Maps natively and that means that your maps show up on the upper display when you're navigating. But Apple CarPlay works just fine. Now, you may notice that we've also got steering wheel controls here, but they're basically blank capacitive pads. But if you hover your thumb over it and touch it lightly, it shows up in [00:03:00] the panoramic display. What each quadrant does for function, basically you've got your audio controls on the right and your driver age systems. On the left though, I find that it's simple enough that after just a day of driving, I don't really need to look at that. Speaker 1: I just got the muscle memory. So what's it like to drive with all of this screen real estate laid out in front of me? Well, it's actually not as distracting as you might think. Again, this is all the same information that's probably in the digital instrument cluster in your car only laid out larger and across [00:03:30] the dashboard with a fancy background. The kind of stuff, particularly on the right hand side of the screen that is displayed isn't even the kind of stuff that you want to spend a lot of time staring at. I mean, the trip computer, your tire pressure monitoring system, the clot, these are things that I don't think should distract you, at least I hope they won't. And the stuff that's dead center, the important stuff, your speedometer, the navigation driver aid information, that stuff is actually a little bit easier to see in this situation because it's larger. Speaker 1: It has a little [00:04:00] bit more space to spread out, and it sits visually higher on the dashboard, which means that it's closer to your field of view, which means that you have to glance the way from the road less to see it. I think that's actually an improvement to safety. Now, of course, I've got to talk a little bit about the rest of the car around the screen. This is of course the 2024 Lincoln Nautilus. It is a mid-size SUV, roughly the size of Ford's Edge, though more luxurious this being Lincoln Ford's luxury brand. [00:04:30] Now under the hood is a Turbocharged four cylinder engine, the only powertrain available with the Nautilus with standard all wheel drive. Though this example has been upgraded with the optional $1,500 hybrid system, which adds a 100 kilowatt electric motor to the mix and brings the total output to around 310 horsepower and 295 pallet feet of torque. Speaker 1: The 30 mile per gallon that you get from this hybrid system is okay, I guess for a vehicle of this size. Overall, the performance, whether you're talking [00:05:00] about driving dynamics or efficiency, are pretty middle of the road and don't really stand out for the rest of the competition, even though they are pretty good. The hybrid system actually only gets around two miles per gallon more than the non-hybrid. So here you're basically paying for a quieter version of the powertrain with a little bit more oomph, not necessarily a more efficient one. Now, one of the features that does stand out from the rest of the class comes standard with every Lincoln Nautilus of this generation, and that is Lincoln's Blue Cruise hands-free driver aid system. [00:05:30] Now, in order to demonstrate Blue Cruise, I've headed to the interstate because, well, that's the only place that it really works. Speaker 1: Blue Cruise is a driver aid system that uses radar sensors, cameras, and more along with high resolution scans of highway map data in order to allow you to drive the vehicle hand free in certain conditions. Now, the way that it works is I'll just activate the cruise control with the lane keeping system active, and I've reached a segment of highway where Blue Cruise [00:06:00] is able to activate. It will just tell me on the dashboard here that I can go hands free, at which point I can just take my hands off the wheel and relax and let the car do the steering. Now, the system even can change lanes. So if I tap the steering column here, it'll check my blind spot and automatically steer me into the next lane and turn the signal off once it's completed the maneuver. Now Blue Cruise is a hands-free system, but it's not an eyes free system. Speaker 1: [00:06:30] There is an infrared camera and emitters right here on the steering column that are keeping an eye on my face and eyes to make sure that I'm looking at the road. Most of the time, you can look away every now and then, but if you spend too much time looking at the infotainment system or at your phone, it'll turn the system off after scolding you. And because the sensors that watch your face are infrared, it also works at night and with sunglasses on. So what do you think? Personally, I'm a fan of this mega screen. I mean, yeah, it's a gimmick that doesn't add much functionality, but it's a cool gimmick [00:07:00] that doesn't take away much safety or add much distraction. And in my book, that makes it pretty all right though personally, I'm still a little bit concerned about what other automakers are planning on doing with their upcoming pillar to pillar mega screens. Speaker 1: We've got Cadillac with the Escalade iq, Sony and Honda with the ELA concept and BMW's upcoming Lia class of EVs, all of which are planning on adding much more functionality and more media to the screen, which if you're not careful, can get pretty sketchy as far as the stretch it is concerned though for now [00:07:30] Lincoln's less is more approach to functionality is all right in my book, even if it does mean more screen head over to cnet.com where we've got even more information about the new Lincoln Nautilus here, as well as other bleeding edge car technologies.