To the younger generations, today’s car infotainment systems may look like nothing special, but 40 years ago this stuff would be borderline magic.
Leveraging the innovation of smartphones, car manufacturers took inspiration from mobile UI’s to create incredibly capable but also intuitive in-car entertainment systems.
From built-in navigation and streaming music services to video playback, modern cars provide a range of features that make getting around both easier and more fun than ever before.
It is tough to put into exact terms the sheer force of computing ability in a car, but we can get an appreciation for it by looking at what kind and how many processors are used in today’s cars. Depending on the make, model, and features included within your vehicle, its computational power may vary greatly. Some cars may contain as many as eight different processors!
It’s not just one streamlined system
There’s more than meets the eye. While the infotainment systems are probably the first thing we think about when mentioning “car computing power”, modern cars have multiple ECUs responsible for controlling various subsystems, such as engine management, transmission, braking, and more. These ECUs typically contain microcontrollers or microprocessors, with a processing power ranging from a few MHz to over 1 GHz.
Infotainment systems are commonly powered by ARM-based processors and GPUs, with processing speeds ranging from a few hundred MHz up to several gigahertz. For the most recent models on the market, this means smartphone or tablet levels of performance. All kinds of features can be enjoyed with such processing power. Even affordable cars possess enough power for activities ranging from playing games on SpinFever through integrated browsers or watching YouTube videos.
Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) like adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assist, and automatic emergency braking demand immense computing power to handle real-time data. That’s why ADAS use dedicated processors or specialized hardware such as Mobileye’s EyeQ chips and NVIDIA’s Drive AGX platforms which have a staggering processing capacity of trillion operations per second (TOPS). Fully autonomous vehicles demand even more computing power for real-time decision-making and sensor fusion. High-performance computing platforms like NVIDIA’s Drive Orin or Tesla’s FSD Computer (Full Self-Driving) provide processing capabilities in the range of 200-300 TOPS.
These brands have the most powerful infotainment systems today
Tesla has crafted an impressive reputation for its robust and agile infotainment solutions. From the Model S to the Model X, each vehicle comes equipped with Tesla’s Media Control Unit 3 (MCU3), which houses a multi-core Intel Atom processor along with a built-in GPU to offer unparalleled responsiveness.
BMW’s iDrive 8 is the latest version of this system and features improved processing power, responsiveness, a multi-core CPU for quick response times, a strong GPU to ensure smooth operations, and cutting-edge AI technologies. All these incredible components are powered by the remarkable BMW Operating System 8 which runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon Automotive Platform.
The Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX) infotainment system is a high-functioning marvel that has been further improved with the release of MBUX Hyperscreen in its electric sedan, the EQS. This upgrade was made possible by an NVIDIA SoC.
Audi’s MMI (Multi Media Interface) infotainment system, particularly the state-of-the-art version found in models like the Audi e-tron GT, offers supreme performance with its utilization of the MIB 3 (Modular Infotainment Toolkit) platform. MIB 3 is powered by NVIDIA Tegra SoC.
Cars will have even more computing power in the future
Automotive technology has already made strides in the computing world, and it looks like we’re just getting started. Autonomous driving, real-time navigation systems, and enhanced safety features are becoming more commonplace – all of which require increasingly powerful processors to run them.
As these technologies continue evolving with time, so too will our need for stronger processing power. Companies such as NVIDIA and Intel have forged the path by generating dedicated AI chips that guarantee us a more elevated infotainment system, so in the foreseeable future some cars will be outfitted with powerful AI processors.
This means vehicles will offer an unrivaled driving experience, along with enhanced entertainment features like augmented reality displays, advanced voice recognition technology, and extensive media selections.