Ignorance is bliss. Well, that’s how most people are with cars. They know vaguely that pushing the STOP/START button will make something happen with sparks and oil to cause the car to move, or maybe there are a few dozen capybaras or hamsters that survive on gasoline that hop on a treadmill under the hood when summoned. Hard to tell.
To monitor the sparks, oil, capybaras and/or hamsters and make sure they’re delivering all they can, gauges and warning messages are relied upon unquestioningly. Would your car lie to you? They may certainly stretch the truth.
Car instruments are essentially the PR people of the engine compartment; they control the narrative and tell you what they want to tell you, and not always clearly. With the emergence of EVs and hybrids – and car companies wanting to really impress you with this technology – consumers may find the messages their cars are sending are getting even more muddled. Can we find a better way? Let’s take a look back first.
A Gauge To Show How Much You’re Pressing The Pedal
Long ago, American manufacturers realized that most car owners just wanted the basic information fed to them while driving, and they were happy to oblige by providing the bare minimum (and saving them money). From the sixties onwards, most dashboards were nothing more than a big horizontal speedometer, a gas gauge and a bunch of warning lights to illuminate when systems were in critical mode. That’s how people liked it; “enthusiasts” might want to see more but individuals like my grandma assumed that more gauges only meant there was more to go wrong. Here’s a good example of a typical setup in a 1972 Chevy Impala:
If you were mister money bags, you could even pop for a clock to replace the strange starburst thing that alerted people you could have had a clock, but were just too cheap to tick that box. (Never mind that you would still be without a clock soon enough even if you did pop for the timekeeper, as they usually died after a few years in those pre-quartz days).
As the seventies began, changes happened as we entered what we now know as the malaise era. In 1973, the great Oil Embargo drastically raised the price of what scarce fuel was available, and it hit carmakers by surprise. American manufacturers were particularly screwed, particularly when their typical “standard” products were things like this aircraft carrier-sized Pontiac Grand Ville convertible:
Ah, but if the car companies couldn’t give you economy, they could at least give you an economy gauge, right? This was the ultimate thoughts-and-prayers, “at least they’re doing something” bullshit they could cobble together. Here’s what that giant Pontiac barge above got in its dashboard:
Yes, it’s the kind of thing unimaginable in the days of 20-cent-a-gallon gas: a fuel economy gauge. American cars from a number of brands offered up this silly instrument in cars of all shapes and sizes. Many times it was huge, even eclipsing the size of the fuel gauge itself. With the instruments of this Chevy Caprice version of that Pontiac above, you can see the actual fuel level gauge gets relegated to a more distant part of the dash.
The giant Oldsmobile version of this giant GM sedan got one, too:
Man, GM went nuts with this gauge on everything from Monte Carlos to Grand Prixs: it’s the size of the freaking speedometer!
At least this one is the same size as the actual fuel level gauge:
Chrysler went all out and called it a “performance” gauge, a rather all-encompassing description:
AMC seems to have really added spin to the gauge by having a massive area of GOOD economy in the calibration. What is “good”? Like 50, 60, 80 miles per gallon? [Editor’s Note: Really, this should have been labeled “Good Enough” at best – JT]
Here’s another great thing about this instrument: in virtually all cases it was merely a vacuum gauge. That’s right: in essence, the gauge’s reading reflected little more than how much you pressed on the gas pedal. The deeper you got into the throttle, the greater the amount of vacuum the engine pulled, and the farther the needle fell into the “not economy” zone. This was great for car companies since it really just put the whole “economy” onus back onto you, the driver. Poor fuel economy? Well, that’s your fault, isn’t it?
The gauge was a joke by almost any standard, and the message from the dashboard seemed to be “could a car with an economy gauge really be totally inefficient as before?” It could indeed be just as inefficient, of course, but displaying economy – no matter how dubiously – let drivers know the automaker cared (or “cared”). The whole thing was pure theater, and gives me a sneaking suspicion we’re seeing a revival of the concept today.
Are Hybrid Power Gauges Any Better Than That Economy Gauge In That Old Pontiac?
A few months back, part of my business trip involved making a four hour run to Atlanta. A Camry appeared to be the best tool for the task on the Enterprise lot, which I realized was a hybrid when I loaded in my bags. The car was exactly what you would expect; quiet and comfortable but painfully dull. However, the “Hybrid System Indicator” in the dash was quite a conversation piece, though I struggled to think of what it was besides that.
Here’s another Toyota hybrid; the Hybrid System Indicator gauge is the thing on the left where the tach would be in a gasoline-only model:
What you have in place of where the tach would be was a needle that could rise into an “economy” and “power” area or drop into a section labeled “charge.” As you accelerated it behaved a bit like a tachometer, and then rapidly swung into the “charge” section when you hammered the brakes.
The gauge is meant to show you how much power you’re using. Does that mean power from the electric motor or the gasoline engine? Well, we don’t know. In fact, let’s look at the description of that gauge, specifically Point C:
Item C reads “gasoline engine power is not being used very often.” Very often. Well, that’s vague as hell, right?
Honda has a similar gauge in their hybrid models, and the video describes it the same way as the Toyota manual:
The circular area around the range, fuel, and mileage info is “POWER Gauge” and CHARGE/DECEL Gauge,” meant to show what percentage of available power is being used.
What do people think of this? Over at Reddit and in Honda forums, users seem to think a lot of wrong things. One person asked why there was no tach for the gas engine, to which one smug commenter asked “Why do you want a tach on a generator?” It only took a few lines for someone to correct them.
In the Honda hybrid, the engine certainly can act as a generator, but according to the manual there are three modes to the system:
EV Drive Mode – Active when starting from a stop, during light cruising and acceleration, and when braking. The gasoline engine is off in this mode and is decoupled from the drivetrain to reduce friction.
Hybrid Drive Mode – The electric propulsion motor alone powers the front wheels, with the gasoline engine powering the electric generator motor, which in turn provides power to the battery pack. This either supplements the battery by providing added electrical power to the propulsion motor or charges the battery if needed.
Engine Drive Mode – Under certain conditions, such as when cruising at medium to high speeds, the high-efficiency Atkinson-cycle i-VTEC® gasoline engine provides propulsion via a lock-up clutch that connects the generator motor to the propulsion motor. This effectively sends power directly from the engine to the drive wheels.
What this means is that “under certain conditions,” the engine is very much not a generator and does indeed power the car directly to the drive wheels. Many if not most hybrid systems work this way.
This raises a few questions about the usefulness of this gauge. First of all, the whole “reserve power” thing might be a bit silly since, unlike internal combustion engines, an electric motor gives you maximum torque from the word go. Also, the car can indeed power the wheels with the gas engine, which means that you might want to see if the engine is running and at what speed.
Let’s face it: Honda engines have historically not provided maximum power at lower revs. The beauty of most Hondas is that they shoot for five-figure revolutions quickly, and it’s essential to getting the power you need out of them; you have two unique power systems in a car that behave very differently. If that’s the case, then this “hybrid” gauge is a bit of a seventies “economy” meter in terms of usefulness.
A few commenters online said that “the power flow schematic you can bring up on the center screen tells a far better story.” I agree with that completely.
My theory on this type of “hybrid” gauge is that, in an effort to emphasize the future-thinking EV aspect of a hybrid, manufacturers want to downplay the fact that the car has an internal combustion engine at all. Honda even eliminates a temperature gauge for the gas engine. A hybrid system is a rather complex thing with aspects of two kinds of technology in one vehicle; seemingly a lot to go wrong. So the car manufacturers likely figures., “why worry the owner about it?”
Honestly, I get that reasoning, and this “one gauge for all” solution is a valiant effort, but the car does have a gas engine with arguably many more needs for monitoring than the electric motor requires, and we want to be able to keep an eye on that stuff. I think we can do better.
Just The Facts, Please
There’s no reason not to have a tachometer in a hybrid. As one example of this, Porsche hybrid vehicles offer a real tach (mechanical on older models like the pics below) with a series of lights at the bottom to show when the electric part of the system is charging or powering the car.
The lights work better than a needle-type gauge because they can react more quickly. In a hybrid, you switch from accelerating or cruising to charging the split second you hit the brakes, which is why the “hybrid gauge” needle swings wildly when driving around town. With the lights, they just switch off and on immediately.
Why not break down the information that a driver might want to know? Namely:
- Is the battery charging?
- Is the electric motor propelling the car?
- Is that gas motor running?
- Is the gas motor propelling the car?
That’s pretty simple right there, and it would seem a regular tach and a pair of bar-graph gauges could easily give us this information. Here are the original gauges and then my proposal:
If the tach is zeroed, you’re all electric and the motor is off. The tach showing revs and the “electric power” gauge at zero, then you know you’re running on straight gas power. Whatever the combination, these three graphics will tell the story.
It could be even simpler than that, and even fun. A Dodge hybrid? How about using the “fratzog” logo for the gauge? Sections of the shape could glow to show what part of the hybrid system is working:
A Mercedes logo could do the same thing in a Benz hybrid, now that I think about it. Regardless, the less complicated the better, and the clearer the message.
Please Don’t Give Us Another Starburst Gauge
Are these concept gauges the answer? Maybe not, but with hybrid cars becoming more prevalent in a world where buyers are still a bit hesitant to go all-electric, we’ll see a lot more of them, and we need some better solutions. There’s no reason you can’t get drivers the information they need without scaring or confusing them. That’s what good PR is about, right?
Honestly, I think if you asked most owners about their current “hybrid” gauge that cars offered, they’d probably say that they’d get more use out of a cluster like this with a giant clock where that useless instrument was:
I think I’d have to agree with them, and that’s pretty bad.
What Are Your Favorite Car Gauges And Instrument Clusters? – The Autopian
Speedometers Are All Wrong And Stupid But I Can Fix Them – The Autopian
A Daydreaming Designer Envisions Some Car Instruments We Could Really Use – The Autopian
What’s The Most Beautiful Speedometer Of All Time? Autopian Asks – The Autopian
Funny I was just talking with my wife about the green “eco” light that comes on in our ICE car’s cluster when you’re driving without too much throttle input or otherwise revving too high. It’s similar to those fuel economy gauges you showed from the 70s (which I’ll confess I never knew have been around for so long) but the info is compressed down into a single light rather than a gauge showing an abstract (and probably rather arbitrary) level of “goodness”.
My wife actually found the eco light useful the other day when the distance-to-empty was 25km for a 20km trip (she will avoid filling up at any cost). Which I suppose is the one narrow use case I can see for it: trying to eke out a few extra KMs during a trip with the petrol light on.
In general it actually might have the opposite effect on me though, if I see it illuminated I feel like I’m accelerating too slowly!
A related and I’d argue similarly useless fuel economy readout was the instantaneous fuel economy gauge commonly seen on 90s/00s era BMWs, as well as the first-gen Lexus IS (and probably other cars too). These needles basically flew around all the time during stop-start traffic or spirited driving and were static on the freeway where you couldn’t do much to improve economy anyway. Hence they proved about as useful as the “good/bad” economy gauge or light – but at least providing some context in numbers I suppose.
BMW has had a fuel economy gauge as long as I can remember, and they still do as far as I’m aware. My E36 M3 and dad’s E39 had mechanical ones tucked low on the cluster, and their newer X3 has a digital one.
I never really got the point either. Instantaneous fuel economy is kind of a useless metric unless you’re driving 300+ miles down the freeway at a constant speed between gas stations. Otherwise, you’re going to have to change speeds lots of times and experience all sorts of other factors like weather, road surface, etc over the course of that tank of gas.
I did find the BMW average fuel economy computer calculations to be remarkably accurate compared to other vehicles. I think it looked at the throttle position sensor and injector duty cycles. Whatever math it did, it was usually aways within 1-2mpg of my physical calc taking trip meter mileage between full tanks divided by the number of gallons pumped into the tank.
My Mom’s 2016 Crosstrek has a vacuum gauge that says power/economy on it still, hahaha.
Pretty sure this is what Rolls-Royce used for their ‘Power Reserve’ gauge.
How I long for the old days when Grandpa could take out his new ’81 Sedan de Ville and cruise along…
…one tiny silver button would change the LED display to show how many cylinders were operating in his 8 Litre V8 engine, another would tell him how fast his engine is rotating.
Another tiny silver button would give him instant MPG – and another would give him estimated miles remaining on his tank of fuel.
A few more buttons would display time of day, distance and ETA for arrival to our programmed destination
(No idea how he’d program that in using all those tiny silver buttons…)
So many tiny silver buttons – So much useless information.
Man, the busy-ness of modern gauges is kind of a thing to behold, especially as a comparison point to their ancestor gauges. I get it. The new shiny thing has to look new and shiny. It’s almost the modern interpretation of outre 1950’s style gauges, except not festooned with chrome bits.
In aircraft, systems present their data is such a manner as to focus the pilot onto the key information needed to safely operate the machine.
I get the tachometer as a legacy of manual transmissions. Maybe it doesn’t make sense anymore in an era where engine speed is a more independent variable of vehicle operation. I miss coolant temperature gauges on modern cars, as I’ve had a couple of times where the gauge helped me limp a car to somewhere safe to stop before a meltdown ensued.
But there’s an era of 1990s/2000s cars that provided the full necessities, but without being excessive. Speed, fuel level, coolant temperature, tach. Legible and clearly labeled. Needles used as a quick reference at a glance.
*Finishes old man ramble*
For me, that time period was definitely peak gauge. My 2 Fords of that era provide all of those (and a couple extra in the Mustang’s case), and I find it all so wonderfully driver-focused. Which is the entire point of them as you point out.
80s cars were hit or mostly miss unless you had the money, and now it’s an mess of style over substance.
When the topic of instrumentation comes up, I am blinded by fury at the industry for following Tesla’s ludicrous practice of putting everything on a screen.
SPOF (single point of failure) is to be vehemently circumvented. All mission critical information and control need to stand on their own and function regardless of a display or system(update) failure.
Congratulations on finding some usefulness for the Fratzog.
It’s a minor point but I’m pretty sure the vacuum gauge in the old days read the opposite of what is in the article. All the ones I saw measured the intake manifold vacuum, so when you stomped on the accellerator the intake manifold was actually at a much lower vacuum level then when you were at idle or partial throttle for economy. Gas pedal to the floor = low vacuum level in the intake but high air flow.
Came here to say the same but you beat me to it! Bishop is correct if it was a boosted vehicle, but then it wouldn’t be a vacuum gauge.
I like the Porsche solution. in the big picture
However, I will give Honda the benefit of the doubt here–in my Prius, keeping the pedal/indicator below the line in the middle of the “eco” section means that (if there is enough charge) the car can slip into EV mode. If it goes above that line, the gas engine will turn on.
I don’t know how many vehicles that applies to or if it’s relevant, but even without a tachometer I still find it helpful to treat it as “don’t cross this line to stay in electric mode [if you’re not being an asshole to other drivers]”
I’ve always liked the look of how BMWs did this with its analog setups.
My Focus has a rudimentary digital bar graph version that I enjoy for being very retro 8-bit feeling, which nicely matches her huge wall of buttons setup.
Well, it’s no openometer, that’s for sure, but it strikes me as more of an attempt fill empty dash space with anything so that buyers feel like they’re getting their money’s worth.
‘My last car only cost $29k and it had six gauges. My new car cost me $50k and it’s only got four gauges. What gives?’
Gauges? We don’t need no thinking gauges.
I mean yeah it’s a useless gauge, but so is a tach on an automatic most of the time. The vast majority of drivers don’t give the slightest shit about a tach, if they even know what it means.
Why tachs are so prominent even on brands that don’t make any manuals at all is baffling.
I think for the same reason that almost every car now has dual tailpipes, or at least looks like it does, no matter how many cylinders it has.
I know plenty of people who have zero idea what their tach means/is telling them.
I’ve got it! How about a PLANT that grows more LEAVES the better you drive? What do you win? Ummm…nothing. Hush. I can see some validity in a dishcarge vs recharge gauge of some sort, which can encourage people in hybrids to use more regen braking (cars with adjustable regen are the best for this, it’s like reminding you to use the paddle instead of the pedal). But honestly, I have an ICE vehicle with 6AT and I shift all the time. Nothing pops up to tell me I just achieved “infinite mpg!” simply because I’m using engine braking and the injectors are off/idled. Most ICE drivers, probably 99%, don’t even know about this. Most manual drivers do, though.Related, but I would submit the most useless gauge of all time is “instant mpg.” Worthless, yet everywhere. A rolling average (past 10 minutes; or trip to date; or since last startup; etc) works great.
Efficiency leaves! Ah Ford, thanks for that. I loved watching them wither.
Even worse was the OG Leaf, which had a series of chevrons that eventually stacked to resemble an evergreen tree (with no measurements or label). Best was that it was so discreetly placed that you didn’t notice it, but it would beep whenever you added a rung, so nervous drivers would repeatedly call from the side of the road thinking they were breaking something. I quickly learned to tell them to ignore it rather than try to explain to them what it was doing, not knowing what driving behavior I was inadvertently implicitly endorsing.
Ford had that exact leaf gauge on their hybrids in the early 2010s.
Beat me to it. Oh the humanity Ford. The best part was their withering (as AssMatt mentions) when you got on it.
This is exactly when Ford started calling everything it could Eco. Or “Echo” in one particular, idiotic, case.
The only thing worse than an “instant mpg” readout is an “instant mpg” readout on a motorbike. Useless AND dangerous, as is anything other than keeping your full attention on the task of riding.
You Joke, but that “proposed” gauge layout was on Ford Hybrids from the 2010 Fusion til the last 2017 Fusion Hybrid. You had the option to display the contribution from both the EV side and gas eng at the same side. It had the additional benefit of being able to show how far to press the accelerator and still keep the gas eng turned off.
How about a screen with no gauge and just a wall of text. I really don’t like how modern gauges make you choose what information to display and what to hide because all the real estate that the gauge graphics take up.
Just bring back altimeters. And a mechanical watch I can take out of the dash and wind.
I’m with you on both of these points with my 96, other than the “just” part:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53489374195_03f6d17eb4_c.jpg
Looking forward to your Member Rides, professor!
Finally, an instrument cluster John Davis can’t complain about
I do have something fairly adjacent – a ’70s Timex “dash clock.”
It’s an electric watch (so a battery powers a mechanical movement), but comes with a stick-on binnacle that you attach to your dash and can swing open to remove the watch itself.
Probably the most durable 70s dash clock
I most enjoy that it’s a regular watch. So you could put a strap on it…but if you stop to think about that, who was going to go to all that trouble and then take it off again to put it back in the holder??
I disagree with this!
I really like having visual feedback of how much power I am commanding out of the electric motors. I found that it helped me keep a live view of my own efficiency and skill at keeping the vehicle up to speed with minimal throttle input.
I can’t speak for all cars, but my 4XE Wrangler this was EXTREMELY helpful. Instead of digitizing the whole screen, or oversimplifying it, they kept the Gas Tachometer on the left, put an Analog Power use tach on the right, and moved the speedometer to the middle screen. This was so logical and neat, and I found that my eye picked up on needle movements much more than the digital display in other cars I’ve driven.
There was always a big difference in the position of the needle to maintain 65 mph and 55 mph, for obvious reasons. I also found that driving to work and never going past 55 would yield me about 25 miles of range, and if i was in a hurry and went 10 over the whole way, I’d be lucky to get 20.
It also gave me an indicator of how much more throttle I could give it without forcing the gas engine to fire. A nitpicky thing, but most engine wear happens during a cold startup, along with the gas engine in the 4xe running at a “high idle” for a good minute before actually powering the vehicle.
If you drive a 4xe wrong enough, you can force the engine to start, and shut off, and start again 4 or 5 times in 20 miles without the gas engine ever powering the Jeep, so you are wasting gas AND electricity, on top of promoting engine wear, and carbon deposits, and emissions. A huge reason I bought the 4xe was to be environmentally conscious, and every time the gas engine pointlessly fired up it felt like losing points in a game of efficiency.
I would tell my wife to try and keep the gauge under 70% under acceleration, and under 50% driving. It saved her probably 3 or 4 startups every time she drove it, and over a year thats a thousand less times that engine had to start and burn fuel.
All because of a handy little gauge!
At least the 4xe models give you some control over the modes, which is great. Even in Stellantis’s very own Pacifica, they didn’t do this. It’s all up to the car.
Most recently I drove a 2023 GC 4xe, a vehicle that Carmax apparently doesn’t realize is a PHEV so I had to suffer through pure ICE mode. Not great…like a bad diesel when it’s working alone, but once the battery recharged a while, WHOOOOSH.
They make excellent lease vehicles, or something to pick up second hand. The resale on them dropped off a cliff with the influx of lease turn ins that the lease companies bought back. It’s a really awesome deal if you pick one up in the $30-35K range with a good warranty to back it up, considering the 60-70K price new, and the fact that they have actually done a great job (especially by stellantis standards) of quickly fixing problems and bugs.
I could be wrong, but I think you’re actually agreeing with me!
If you look at my post again, you’ll see that I’m referring to the gauge on Toyota and Honda hybrids (and maybe more, but those are the only ones I looked and there’s a LOT out there). I want a gauge that DOES tell me when I’m dipping into the gas motor, and those Toyota and Honda ones apparently do NOT tell you that.
Looking at the one in the 4xe, it appears to be like that Porsche hybrid (with a tach), and THAT’S what I’m pining for.