New Design Approach Changes the View from the Driver’s Seat

When it comes to designing car interiors, the trend in recent decades was towards “more”: more buttons, more features, more elements. We’re going the other way, using human-centric design to declutter the interior and create a holistic space. 

To step inside the Ford Mustang Mach-E is to experience an interior unlike any Ford vehicle that came before it. The all-new design is the culmination of refining the things that customers want – spaciousness, technology and a perception of “warmth”. The result is a view from the driver’s seat that is a benchmark on the road towards electrification.

Reductive design is intended to provide drivers with a more comfortable and simpler environment. In the case of the Mustang Mach-E, this includes a large, centralised touchscreen that consolidates many of the in-car controls in one place. Wireless charging pads and a digital owner’s manual does away with cables and paper.

Car interiors have changed a lot from when drivers really did store gloves in the glove compartment, as the metal and wooden steering wheels of early vehicles got ice cold in winter. To show the changes, we created a video with the driver’s view from a dozen vehicles, from the Model T to the Mustang Mach-E, and beyond. 

Some of the developments shown in the video include:

• House windows were used in cars initially – and only offered as an extra
• Curved windscreens led to the development of air-conditioning – as windscreens could no longer be opened
• When first made available, radios initially amounted to 20 per cent of the vehicle’s value
• Post-war dashboards were influenced by the space race, with more dials, switches and gauges, as technology became increasingly a key part of people’s lives
• The advent of video games and the use of hand-held gaming controls influenced steering wheel design, with buttons placed within easy reach of the driver’s thumbs
• Today’s interiors are increasingly made of more durable materials, able to better withstand contact with products such as hand sanitiser, sun lotion and insect repellent 

To better understand the younger generation of digital natives and anticipate future trends, we embarked last year on a unique project: co-creating a virtual gaming race car in collaboration with gamers. Almost a quarter-of-a-million esports fans took part in online polls to help determine the appearance of our extreme Team Fordzilla P1 race car – inside and out.

Amko Leenarts, director, Design, Ford of Europe.

“When we think about how cars have changed, we think of what they look like from the outside, but it is from the inside that drivers and passengers see them most of the time. It’s been an incredible journey to the dynamic, holistic interior of the Mustang Mach-E, which does more with less while putting all the important controls within easy reach.” 

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