Ah, yes. That one thing all of our cars are missing, that one thing they all need more of… emotions? I guess if you’re asking Volkswagen, that’s what it’ll be giving you on its all-electric ID.3.
VW is calling it the ID. Light concept (and, please, enough with the unnecessary periods in the middle of a car’s or feature’s name!), and it’s supposed to give the car more “emotionality,” the press release says.
Basically, ID. Light will be an LED strip that runs across the dashboard that will change color or blink to signal all kinds of information to the driver. It sounds like the intention is to get rid of the warning symbols on your dashboard or the driver assist beeps that let you know you’re crossing over into another lane.
The light is also going to… talk to you? Sorta?
ID. Light also supports voice control: it responds to the voices of vehicle occupants by sending a light signal. This indicates whether the voice control assistant is responding to the driver or the front passenger.
A gif in the press release suggests it’ll look like this:
Knight Rider was right, apparently. The future of human-car communication is the blinking lights KITT had, just without the car actually speaking back at you.
There’s not really a ton of information or photos about where this LED light bar will be located, or how big it will be, or what its complicated light-and-flash language will be. But I guess it’ll at least be “personable” in the sense that it has emotions and conversations, which I cannot say is really anything I’ve ever really wanted.