Lincoln (the luxury car division of the Ford Motor Company for those outside of the USA) has announced that it has put a HUD system based on a TI DLP chip in the upcoming Lincoln Continental 2017. This is not the first Lincoln to sport a HUD, but according to Ford, this is the first car to use a TI DLP chip for the projection system.
As a luxury car, the Lincoln Continental does have a lot of nice features, this new HUD being just one of them. Lincoln states that the new system allows them to produce a brighter image compared to other solutions based on LCD panels. Lincoln advertises that they use the same technology as the movie theater to offer a clean crisp image. They have not released what type of DLP chip they are using, but we can be sure that it is not the TI cinema chip.
The image shows the image with some of the features activated. The image is also suggesting that one will have a hard time focusing on the HUD information and the street behind at the same time. The lane departure warning feature also shows that this is not an augmented reality HUD that actually matches the displayed information to the real world (see how the lanes are moved to the right side of the road in the slight left turn).
Analyst Comment
I saw the TI demonstration for the automotive HUD over two years ago at CES. It shows how long it takes for display technology to make it into a production vehicle. In the automotive industry time just moves at a different rate compared to the consumer electronics industry. Not many smartphones are sold for two years without some upgrades. In the case of the automotive industry it takes two years or more to just get released. Now this model will be sold for 5+ years. This is not a bad deal for the display makers – finally they hope they can make some money on the back end of a display life cycle, even though TI always enjoyed much longer life cycles compared to the LCD makers. (NH)
According to those we spoke to at this year’s CES, TI’s solution is seen as too expensive by some, which could be why this system is just in a luxury car at the moment. (BR)
