![\"Volvo](\"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/the-rise-of-digital-dials-are-analogue-instruments-the-new-luxury.jpg\" "\\"Volvo")
<\/a><\/p>\nDigital dials have become the norm, with only luxury cars like the Bugatti Tourbillon using an analogue speedo<\/p>\n
This week, the screen I will mostly be looking at is the one pictured below, after a hire car lottery ran out of Kia Picantos<\/a> and provided me with a Volvo XC60<\/a>. I\u2019m not unhappy about this.<\/p>\n The XC60 is a comfortable car and this is mostly a comfortable screen to look at. It\u2019s easy to be critical and plenty (including me) have been of the direction Volvo<\/a> has taken with its interior functionality lately, with mass migration of controls to a touchscreen \u2013 including essentials like the foglight switches \u2013 at the expense of separate-button usability.<\/p>\n Speculation, of course, but this may be one\u00a0of the reasons the pragmatic H\u00e5kan Samuelsson was restored as interim CEO. He\u2019s a steady hand who understands that cars are not smartphones.<\/p>\n The XC60 has been around since 2017, and while its digital instrument cluster has been updated in that time, there\u2019s still a lot to like about the simplicity of its graphics and fonts.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t overburden a driver with information;\u00a0<\/p>\n I could turn off the map if I wanted. And I should also find myself pleased about the fact that it retains two dials, one for the speedo and one for the rev counter, because the genius of a dial is just how much it tells you in such short order.<\/p>\n At a glance, you can see a facet\u2019s upper and lower limits, with a needle that shows how far along that range you are, the direction of travel and the rate of change. Numbers alone can\u2019t do this: they can only tell you where you are right now.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason that when film directors want to show an aeroplane in distress, they show a needle spinning anticlockwise very rapidly. We\u00a0all know what it means.<\/p>\n That should make this Volvo\u2019s dials preferable to use than the numerical script for the speed. Should but, I\u2019m finding, doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n With dials nestling perhaps too discreetly around the edge of the screen and with a bold numerical font front and centre showing the speed right next to a graphic that apes roadside speed limit signs (usually but far from always, of course, getting the limit correct), I find myself looking at the numbers more frequently instead.<\/p>\n This is down to the size of the digits, but\u00a0so glacial is the normal rate of change in daily driving anyway that going by the numbers isn\u2019t too much of a drag.<\/p>\n And with a mildly hybridised engine, an automatic gearbox, busy traffic and New York state\u2019s typical upper speed limit of 55mph, it\u2019s not like I\u2019m paying the slightest\u00a0bit of attention to the rev counter either.<\/p>\n Were the rotary dial bigger and the supposed speed limit a small red telltale needle, I think the display would be more useful. As I find myself nearing a speed limit from above or below, it would be better to have a needle showing how quickly I\u2019m closing in on it, but the instrument has been relegated to minor or cancelled status.<\/p>\n And this is the case all over the car business. Of the new cars I\u2019ve tested recently, only in a Caterham Seven<\/a> and a Morgan Supersport<\/a> have I been overtly aware of a speedo needle spinning around a dial \u2013 and the Morgan had a supplementary digital numeric display too.<\/p>\n Even in Porsches <\/a>and Ferraris<\/a>, where you would expect the needle to move quickly, you find numbers for the speed, alongside, thankfully still, dials for the revs.<\/p>\n I think there\u2019s an inevitability about this.\u00a0Two large numerals take up less space than even a small dial, and it\u2019s not like one can do away with a digital screen entirely, because modern legislation requires that the driver is presented with ample \u2013 often too much \u2013 information.<\/p>\n But is there a limit to how good a digital display can look? That in my XC60 is of high resolution, and even if the fonts do date, they will do so with Scandi-cool vibes.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to imagine a display looking much more luxurious<\/a>. I don\u2019t remember the dials in the Rolls-Royce Spectre<\/a> or Bentley Bentayga<\/a> looking much better, and I\u2019m not\u00a0sure that should be the case.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/the-rise-of-digital-dials-are-analogue-instruments-the-new-luxury-1.jpg\")
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