Driving a regular car is hardly like running an oil rig or a nascar/f1 car.
No car that i know if uses numbers for everything so is this whole debate just about a digital speedo?

 

Actually, from what I remember, back in the 1980s, the speedo was the first gauge to be digitized.....on Cadillacs and Lincolns. If my memory is also correct, that decade saw the conversion from the old mechanical speedometer/odometer cables, that hooked into a bevel-gear in the transmission, to electronic sensors that measured wheel-rotation speed instead. That, IMO, was a very important development, because, a few years later, it enabled the development of electronic anti-lock brakes, traction-control, vehicle-stability-systems, and tire-pressure indicators, all based at least part or all on the wheel-speed sensors. Of course, the speedo itself, even with electronic speed-sensors, did not have to be shown in digital format.....indeed many potential buyers were put off by the digital readout, which is why automakers eventually offered a choice of electronic-analog or electronic digital, with a programable switch.

There were a couple of other important beneficial features that the conversion from the old mechanical speedo/odometer cable brought. One was the fact that you no longer had to listen to that annoying tick-tick-tick sound and watch the speedometer needle vibrate or jump around when the cable needed lubrication or started to fail. (Indeed, I had a brand-new 1975 Plymouth Duster, my first brand-new car, and the cable failed within six months). Second, the elimination of the joint-mechanical cable, shared with the odometer, made it far more difficult (but not impossible) for unscrupulous owners or used-car dealers to practice odometer-fraud by rolling back the mileage on the cable with a simple drill-bit attachment.

 

When i wrote digital i meant numbers instead of needles.

And 'analog' dials aren't always great. I think this ferrari gauge cluster is ridiculous. The 'up' position of the speedo is 240kph or about 150mph. Try easily monitoring speed accurately for public roads using 1/8th of the rotation. a number would be far easier.

 

Though they are, yes, street-legal cars, a lot of Ferraris and Lamborghinis are designed to be (primarily) driven on a track. That needle-at-zero-while-pointing-straight-down is traditional racing-car style, before some of the heads-up digital stuff took over.

 

Boys, you know that any real race car or street performance Ferrari is run by the tachometer and rpm's don'tcha? No, I don't like it, don't like it at all.

 

Thanks, Bob, for that background. I have 2 comments to add to that.

First, if we look at the progress of automotive (and aircraft) instrumentation, it is interesting and telling:

analog (steam) gauges --> early electronic (digital) gauges with digital-clock type numbers and bar graphs with easily-discernable segments (due to poor graphics-rendering capability) --> analog gauges (but turned by digital electronics) --> digital gauges mimicking analog gauges

It would seem that the old, "traditional" analog gauge is still better than the discrete, flashing numbers. Instead of looking at -- and trying to decipher -- a flashing number and wondering if it is trending up or trending down, and also wondering if it is in a safe (green) or unsafe (red) operating zone, we merely have to glance at the relative position of the needle on the dial (it matters less where the needle is or what number its location represents, what matters is if it is "green" or "red").

Second, I worked on a first-generation digital aircraft instrumentation system 20-something years ago. It was a segmented, colour liquid-crystal display (LCD) system. Unlike today's multi-coloured, high pixel count LCDs that can be programmed to display anything, our display had a special place for every piece of information that you wanted displayed (and everything in its place).

The engine parameter displays were segmented bar graphs; each segment represented some range of values and there were different-coloured segments (at least green and red, as I remember) for the different operating ranges.

There was also a 2-line text display for messages. Each character was rendered with a number of different segments (remember those segmented digital numbers on early digital watches and flashing VCR time displays?). I remember having heated discussions about how to best represent the percent (%) symbol.

We also had to be worried about how frequently we were updating the segments: Because we had to literally add or subtract segments and textual displays, it was important how fast we were refreshing the display -- too slow and the display would appear choppy, but too fast would be a waste of resources.

We now fly (and drive) with multi-coloured, high pixel count, very bright, high-contrast LCD screens, rendering instrumentation that mimics analog gauges, and refreshing the displays as frequently as possible, all to make the digital appear analog.

 

Agreed. Looking down at a digital speed is not the same as trying to determine if "32" psi is in a proper range on an oil rig. Your analog speedometer doesn't tell you if you are in a good range or bad range--it tells you speed.

Not to mention that modern digital displays will, for example, show red if you are in RPM redline.

It's a great example, just not relevant to driving a car.

 

Plus--the speedo hash marks are labeled every 30 mph. Am I supposed to do math in my head every time I look at the speedo to figure out how much each has mark between 60 and 90 represents?

 

Just to be clear that speedo is in KPH not MPH.

 

what a worthless speedometer. I thought the viper one was bad until i enabled the setting that would display the digital number

 

uh, it has 'analog' style as well, so not sure the issue.

 

My issue with gauges is a speedometer that show a top speed of 160mph when my Accord can only do 129mph on a good day downhill. Also another issue is in america most highways are limited to 65 mph. So why take up so much gauge real estate and cram the usable speed reading to only half the available space making it hard to see at a glance especially if the car cant go any faster than 130mph.

For me i prefer digital dash with digital reading for speed. Or an analog one with realistic mph numbers based on performance of car.

 

Yes, that drives me nuts on regular cars with limited horsepower or restricted top speeds. Worst offender I can think of is the 2007-2014 or so Escalade. 160mph speedo on that truck, aerodynamics of a barn. Its speed limited to 107mph from the factory.

 

Well, keep in mind that vehicles are not all sold in the same markets. U.S. versions of a vehicle, for example, usually can't go any faster than about 70-75 MPH legally (depending on the posted speed limit), where, in Germany, for instance, there are still some sections of the Autobahns left with no official limits. So, perhaps that 160-MPH (or KPH equivalent) speedometer actually means something outside the U.S. And there's no need for the factory to produce dozen different versions of the speedometer depending on what country you are in....modern vehicles are complex enough as it is.

 

I still don't see anybody trying to v-max an Escalade on the autobahn lol.