BMW announced the new Mini Cooper EV, and the design centerpiece of it is a big round screen in the middle of the dashboard. It looks distinctive, classy yet contemporary, notwithstanding the general usability problems that touchscreen interfaces present and drivers' growing hatred of them.
It also strikes me that this is also like an old parody of the future, and that the round screen might, in an old prognostication, have indicated that the designer didn't "understand" how technology works. "You'd have to have a rectangular one with a round mask, perhaps," I might have nerdily corrected an artist in 1990-something. Yet here it is! Sometimes those among us unrestrained by knowledge of technology can more precisely imagine its future: giant steampunk-ass barometers in electric cars.
Here's Auto Express's review:
