Hyundai at CES 2011

Hyundai proved to be one of the biggest automotive surprises here at CES. While Audi and Ford have grabbed the headlines, it's clear that Hyundai isn't far behind, and on this evidence, may even be ahead in some areas of in-car electronics, before too long.

The company unveiled its new ‘Bluelink' infotainment and telematics system as part of Tuesday's Consumer Telematics Show and this was being demonstrated on the company's show stand at CES too. Bluelink itself isn't a surprise in light of the headlong jump by many other automakers into this area (Toyota unveiled something similar at CTS, and OnStar has now jumped the GM shark, meaning in its aftermarket form, it'll be available in Hyundais before too long).

However, what we weren't expecting from Hyundai was a show stand to rival Audi's in size and luster — featuring the Sonata Hybrid and Nuvis concept from 2009 — or the five conceptual demonstration booths, which Hyundai was using to showcase future in-car technology and HMIs.

Bluelink itself incorporates everything you'd expect of a present day telematics system: automatic crash notification, stolen vehicle showdown, remote start and door unlocking, navigation at the push of a button via remote servers/call centers. It appears to function in almost exactly the same way as GM's OnStar, with the rear view mirror featuring three buttons the driver can press to alert emergency services, get directions sent, etc.

Of greater design interest were the HMI and display concepts. Proving that where premium automakers such as Audi plan to lead, Hyundai aren't far behind, one booth was illustrating a future head up display system with augmented reality navigation overlay and traffic sign recognition (just like the one announced by Audi in their keynote). The graphics were much more cartoon-like, and the system was obviously somewhat less developed than Audi's, but clearly the premium auto makers cannot expect to own this space for themselves. It's also interesting to note that Hyundai were showing this system running from a Smartphone docked into the car's centre console — rather than an onboard/cloud system accessed by the car.

Of most immediate relevance to Hyundai's short/mid-term future cockpit design, may be the iDrive-type HMI controller, which includes haptic feedback dubbed 'Intelligent Haptic System'. This feels and looks close to production ready, and illustrates Hyundai's increasingly premium positioning. While couching this view with the fact that the system remains a concept, it's design, usability and quality stands direct comparison with the premium German auto makers' products, and is far beyond anything currently seen from the likes of Lexus — with its mouse-controller — or Jaguar — with its touchscreen.

The controller itself features a raised metal knob with a rubber surround, that turns, with a varying responses, sometimes a pleasing bezel-like click, as per Audi's MMi, sometimes a rubberised springyness. It's all part of the haptic feedback that's built in. In front of it are a series of shortcut buttons and around the raised knob itself is a light ring, which changes color in correlation with the different function selected, echoing the display screen (red for HVAC, purple for car status, blue for navigation, etc). What's impressive is the way the ‘haptic feedback' has been integrated, with feedback varying to help a user understand where they are within a menu, and ultimately minimising the need to take eyes off the road. For instance, as you turn up the speed of the fan, each click round of the wheel becomes progressively heavier, until you reach max speed, at which point it force feedbacks a heavily damped ‘stop' and the knob won't turn any further. Completing the impression of quality is a graphically clean and logically laid-out TFT display screen.

Less impressive from a pure design point of view, but impressive for its technological integration, was the somewhat clunkily-named 'Applied Mouse-type Commander with Haptic Wheel and Motion Sensor', shown in another booth. This advanced controller integrates three elements - joystick ‘ball', mouse, and motion/gesture sensor — to create an impressively set of UI possibilities (gesture your hand above it to scroll through music, or scroll with the mouse wheel through radio stations), albeit packaged in a rather bulky-looking device. See the video for a demonstration.

Hyundai are doing exceptionally well in the market place at present, particularly in North America, and much of what it showed here illustrates how the company sees technology as a way to further increase its market share. Given that Korean electronics companies such as LG and Samsung have stolen the CES show with products like their 'Superphones' and 3D TVs (increasingly supplanting Japanese companies such as Sony as the perceived leaders in this area), we aren't surprised to see Hyundai capitalizing on its home country's leadership in the area of electronics. This was an impressive and varied showcase, and leads us to believe that — along with Audi, BMW and Ford — Hyundai are one of the companies to watch for in-car electronics technology in the future.

By Joe Simpson