Range Rover set to shrink screens due to tech fatigue

Range Rover will reduce the size of the screens it uses in future while improving their cabin integration while also avoiding the rush to add passenger-specific displays.

The British brand says it is pushing back against what it sees as an exhausting approach to in-car technology that is over-reliant on huge screens.

The production-spec Range Rover GT has provided the clearest evidence yet of this pivot, pairing a thin digital instrument panel with just one discreet central touchscreen mounted relatively low in the cabin.

In the coming years and decades, the Range Rover GT’s cabin design philosophy will migrate into the brand’s other models, with Range Rover global product marketing director Ryan Miller confirming next-gen cars will receive changes “in a similar vein” to the GT’s reductive interior.

“We see lots of [rivals] going the other way with their cabins – loaded with tech, loaded with capability, loaded with noise: visual and acoustic noise.

“We free our cabin from all of that. That’s what makes us unique…we will keep evolving,” said global Range Rover managing director Martin Limpert.

However, Range Rover is holding firm against the industry’s general return to more physical buttons. Physical steering wheel controls will remain, but most secondary functions will continue to be activated via screens.

The confirmed move towards more subtle cabin technology will put Range Rover at odds with an industry that has spent much of the last decade equating screen real estate with sophistication, even as some customers pushed back.

It’s a trend that has moved from the enlarging of central touchscreens to the addition of digital instruments and passenger displays, to more recent models with uninterrupted pillar-to-pillar screens, including the new Mercedes-Benz GLC Electric’s 39-inch Hyperscreen.

Some other premium brands, including BMW, have likewise rejected dominant displays and have instead looked to solutions like a thin panel traversing the top of the dashboard.

Range Rover wants no part in the race.

“We’re not going to try and compete with these guys in terms of number of screens and tech and headline numbers. That is absolutely not what we are about. If anything [we are] going the other way,” Miller told carsales.

“We’re looking to create a really tranquil sanctuary, an opportunity to detoxify through everyday life [with the] minimum number of screens we need to present the information the driver needs – nothing more,” he said.

Even with slightly smaller displays, expected technologies like wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto will still be available through Jaguar Land Rover’s latest-generation infotainment systems.

Some models will also continue to feature available rear entertainment units if specified by the customer.

The strategy intersects with Range Rover’s response to the growing number of rival brands, particularly from China, that are seeking to draw on the British marque’s established exterior and interior design languages.

A lack of enormous screens will create more real estate for Range Rover to upholster interiors in richer materials that it sees as better aligned to luxury than glossy black screens.

The low-riding quasi-sedan GT model will be Range Rover’s first clear demonstration of its new cabin philosophy, but Miller’s comments clarify that the GT will not be alone for long.

Work is nearly complete on the next-generation Range Rover Evoque and future versions of the full-size Range Rover, and the Range Rover Sport, are in progress.

Expect to see the cabins of each of those models become visually quieter than they are now.

A wafer-like instrument panel is expected to remain, but the central screen is almost certain to become a less dominant part of the experience.

However, it remains to be seen whether Range Rover will see value in re-adopting some classic physical control switchgear such as knurled climate knobs to supplement more subtle in-car tech.

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