The Human-Machine Interface solutions are the key to ensure that the advanced automotive technologies are interfaced with the user in simple and intuitive ways that enables them to operate these technologies with ease. HMI technologies are aiming to provide a user-centric holistic Human-Machine Interface to the consumer. The Future Automotive Industry Structure - FAST 2030 report, HMI is one of the seven trends that will reshape the automotive industry by 2030.

Some HMI technologies would feature prominently in the near future are:

Head-Up Display (HUD)

The head-up display was created to reduce driver distraction and to increase safety. To read the driving information from the instrument cluster, one has to take their eyes off the road for at least half a second. This means that when the driver keeps a speed of 120 km/h, they will be driving blind for about 33 meters. A head-up display (HUD) shows information exactly where the driver needs it – directly in the line of sight. With the Head-up display, the driver gets all relevant driving information such as speed, warnings, navigation guidance over the hood. With Augmented-Reality Head-up displays in addition to regular driving information, it also supplements the exterior view of the traffic conditions in front of the vehicle with virtual information for the driver.

For Continental, the HUD represents a key technology and ensures safety and comfort at all times. With this technology, we provide driver confidence in automated driving.

Natural 3D Lightfield Display

The natural 3D Lightfield display is creating a new dimension of comfort and safety. It provides a natural 3D user experience of the highest quality in the vehicle. 3D displays have benefits like the accuracy of object position, joy of use by providing attractiveness and user experience, reduced reaction time on unexpected events. Hence features like navigation, cruise control, parking, warnings in 3D make driving comfortable and intuitive. With the Lightfield technology, there is neither the need for cameras detecting head movement nor 3D glasses. As there is no need for head tracking, the 3D display is not limited to the driver’s view, and the front passenger and the occupants in the rear seat can also enjoy the three-dimensional experience. This opens the door for entertainment features in 3D like video conferencing, movies, online shopping, and much more.

Continental’s new 3D Lightfield application using Leia’s DLB (Diffractive Lightfield Backlighting) technology offers the next level above conventional 3D displays. It enables a crystal-clear screen, even when sunlight is shining directly onto it.

Cross-Domain Hub

Cross-Domain Hub is a crucial step towards the transformation of modern vehicle architecture that demands the consolidation of electronic control units (ECU). Cross-Domain Hub is a high-performance computer that integrates all the displays into a single unit and provides a holistic Human-Machine Interface. The driver can dynamically distribute content across multiple displays and place the information where they need to see it. The displays are enabled with touch, gesture recognition, voice recognition, and haptic feedback that allows the driver to stay focused on the road and makes driving safe. It provides a flexible user interface personalized for the user. The user interface is seamless across the integrated display, providing a consistent Human-Machine interface philosophy.

Continental provides a scalable solution to cater to the premium segment to entry Cross-Domain Hub. Our first Cross-Domain Hub has hit series production now.

Ac2ated Sound

A recent innovation that was showcased at CES 2020, this unique system fills the vehicle interior with lifelike immersive sound. It provides a breathtaking 3D sound reproduction, engaging passengers in an excellently detailed and evocative soundtrack, which helps them enjoy their in-car entertainment to the fullest. This system produces the highest audio quality, which is ideally suited for electric vehicles as well, saving space and weight. This system is inspired by the classical string instruments technology, where the wooden body is used to resonate chamber and actuators excite specific surfaces in the vehicle interior. This results in an extremely natural experience for the user.

Continental’s innovative concept abandons conventional speaker technology altogether. Combined with Sennheiser’s AMBEO Mobility, the concept achieves a breathtaking 3D sound reproduction that envelops passengers in an incredibly detailed and vivid soundscape and lets them enjoy their in-car entertainment to the fullest.

Smart Voice Assistant

Smart Voice Assistant helps in natural and safe communication with the vehicle. A few years back, people could hear the radio or their family with them while driving a car, but now cars itself is becoming a smart communication partner. Driver assistance and infotainment are supplying more and more information to the driver, so there is a need for solutions that ensure intuitive, easy, and safe interaction between the driver and the car. This HMI technology uses the most natural means of communication: the spoken word. The system is capable of communicating almost like a human. Smart and adaptive driver assistance system enables natural dialog, understands multiple questions in one sentence, and detects logical connections, and provides distraction-free operation via smart voice control enhances road safety.

Continental’s Smart Voice Assistant is an intelligent speech assistant that can learn and adapt to user behavior, preferences, and context. By that, it helps drivers to interact with the vehicle in a less distracting way, pushing the user experience to the next level.

Conclusion

The HMI revolution in vehicles was started by replacing buttons with dashboard screens. Then voice commands were incorporated, and vehicles began talking to their drivers. However, the human-machine interface goes beyond the screens. Though the industry is still years away from fully autonomous vehicles as autonomy increases, the importance of driver’s attention will decrease, and manufacturers have to shift their focus on enabling communication between the owner, the passengers, and the vehicle. Automotive technology companies have started working on this aspect and are developing solutions for a comfortable journey for everyone in the car and not only the driver. Automated vehicles are the future of driving, and HMI is here to enable it. (MT)

NB: Rosemary Joshy is the Head of Engineering, Human Machine Interface business unit, Continental Automotive India. Views expressed are personal.

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Coretura, a 50:50 joint venture between Daimler Truck and Volvo Group, has entered into an engineering agreement with Accenture to accelerate the development of a software platform for commercial vehicles.

The company, headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, currently employs over 100 engineers. It continues to recruit specialists in system architecture, high-performance computing and cloud infrastructure to support its roadmap, which targets the delivery of its first commercialised products towards the end of the decade.

Coretura intends to create a single software platform, language and standard for trucks, buses and other heavy-duty transport vehicles. The platform is designed to support vehicle lifecycles of more than 15 years, moving the industry away from projects that require custom software development for each new vehicle.

As the engineering partner, Accenture will support development across several areas, including:

• Electrical and Electronic (E/E) architecture
• Software abstraction and hardware integration
• Embedded software, middleware, and cybersecurity
• Functional safety and cloud infrastructure

The platform aims to provide a reusable software stack to lower costs and standardise time-to-market for global manufacturers. For fleet operators, the system is designed to allow for continuous software updates and performance upgrades delivered over the air.

Johan Lunden, CEO, Coretura, said, “Our purpose is to advance mobility at the speed of ideas, and that takes depth. Building a full-stack SDV platform demands expertise across embedded software, middleware, cybersecurity, and functional safety, all designed for vehicles with lifecycles measured in decades. Accenture’s reinvention capabilities let us move faster without compromising the standards our customers depend on. This is acceleration, not course correction.”

Rainer Oder, SDV Embedded Software Lead, Accenture, added, “Helping the industry advance software-defined vehicles is a priority for Accenture. Our landmark collaboration with Coretura is designed to change embedded software engineering for automotive platforms. Together, we are looking to solve the challenges of a fully software-defined architecture – addressing critical areas such as hardware abstraction, API management and AI-based engineering optimisations.”

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The ePlane Company has announced the completion of its full-scale electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the e200X. Designated PT-01, the prototype has successfully integrated all core subsystems into a single structure, marking the transition from design and simulation to physical testing.

The e200X is designed as a single airframe versatile enough to serve three distinct markets – Passenger Air Taxi, Urban Cargo Carrier and Air Ambulance.

The company emphasises that the aircraft was designed to be compact, allowing it to integrate into existing urban infrastructure without requiring significant city redesigns.

Developed at the company's own facilities in Chennai, the e200X features in-house development of major components, including propellers, airframe structure, landing gear and battery pack.

This vertical integration provides the company with control over performance, manufacturing costs, and iteration speed, having reached this milestone on approximately USD 21 million in funding.

With assembly complete, the e200X will now undergo ground testing, flight testing and certification.

Prof. Satya Chakravarthy, Founder, The ePlane Company, said, "We set out to build an electric aircraft to a world-class benchmark, engineered and manufactured in depth in India for the World.  We deliberately designed the e200X to be compact, because an aircraft that asks a city to rebuild itself around it will not solve the problem it was built to solve. The same airframe can move people as an air taxi, carry goods as a cargo aircraft, and save lives as an air ambulance, and it can do all three using the infrastructure cities already have. That combination of real capability and capital efficiency is how we intend to compete, and win, in markets around the world.”

The company’s board includes prominent figures such as Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest), Eash Sundaram (JetBlue) and Aditya Ghosh (Homage, Akasa Air). The venture, incubated at IIT Madras, has also received international recognition, including being showcased at Bharat Innovates 2026 and featured in Nvidia Founder Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote.

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Chinese technology company Xiaomi has marked a new milestone for its automotive product offering with its electric vehicle.

The company has announced a significant milestone in autonomous vehicle technology by completing the first official autonomous lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit in Germany with the Xiaomi YU7 GT, equipped with a Track Package, navigating the 20.8 km circuit without a human driver, recording a lap time of 10:29.483.

Following this performance, the Nurburgring has introduced a new official vehicle category: Autonomous Driving (under Electric Vehicles).

The Xiaomi YU7 GT autonomously navigated all 73 corners of the Nordschleife, managing 300 metres of elevation change and varying road surface conditions. The performance was driven by Xiaomi’s autonomous driving system, which integrates the Xiaomi XLA architecture and the MiMo-Embodied foundation model introduced in March 2026. The end-to-end architecture enabled the vehicle to coordinate steering, braking and power delivery in real-time, maintaining stability under high-speed and high-load conditions.

Xiaomi’s autonomous driving programme has evolved since the 2024 launch of Xiaomi HAD. The current system moves beyond simple behaviour imitation toward autonomous decision-making and deeper environmental interpretation. The company stated that the Nurburgring project serves as a critical testing ground to collect data for refining vehicle dynamics modelling, control strategy optimisation and safety redundancy mechanisms.

This achievement underscores Xiaomi’s commitment to advancing artificial intelligence in the automotive sector through rigorous real-world validation.

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QuantumScape Corporation has announced a multi-year joint research agreement with Honda R&D Co., a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co.

The collaboration focuses on advancing QuantumScape’s solid-state lithium-metal battery platform, including the development of associated manufacturing processes.

This agreement follows a successful technology evaluation period during which Honda conducted a technical study and competitive benchmarking of QuantumScape’s battery platform.

Atsushi Ogawa, Chief Operating Officer, Research Center of Excellence, Honda R&D Co, said, “QS technology demonstrated compelling and unique advantages during our evaluation. We see potential for QS technology to add value across a range of applications, including automotive, and we are excited to move forward into the next phase of our partnership.”

Dr. Siva Sivaram, CEO and President, QuantumScape, added, “Honda is a leading global automaker renowned for its engineering excellence and product quality across automotive and other applications worldwide, and its evaluation represents one of the most rigorous assessments of our technology to date. This agreement reflects the growing confidence in QS solid-state lithium-metal batteries to enable safer, higher-density energy storage.”

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