The giant touchscreen display in the dashboard of the Tesla Model S (and the upcoming Model X) still feels thoroughly modern — there’s nothing else on the automotive market that’s quite as unapologetically tech-first in its design. That said, as Jalopnik’s Damon Lavrinc notes, the user interface on it is starting to look pretty dated by modern standards. It doesn’t help that every mobile and desktop operating system under the sun has now completely eschewed skeuomorphism and faux-3D elements for flat, simple shapes and colors.
This beautiful Tesla user interface concept is a huge improvement
Design house Bureau Oberhaeuser is tossing around some ideas on how a next-gen Tesla UI should look, posting a short video detailing how you’d interact with it. The current interface allows you to place two different functions in different panes at the same time — navigation and media, for instance — but Oberhaeuser’s concept takes it to the next level, displaying any number of flat, two-dimensional windows for contacts, energy consumption, web browsing, and so on. Each can be resized in a grid as needed.
Coincidentally, Tesla CEO Elon Musk mentioned an upcoming refreshed UI for the car’s controls on today’s press conference, and Oberhaeuser’s concept seems like a great place to start — simply flattening everything out makes a huge difference.
Verge Video: Riding in the insane Tesla Model S
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
