‘Not the best experience’ Audi’s Design Director is not a fan of big screens – Jalopnik

Audi’s latest generation of interior design has gone all-in on large screens that take up most of the dashboard, but it doesn’t seem like this trend will continue for too long – not if the company’s emerging design director has anything to say about it. Massimo Frascella, who has been at the helm for about a year and a half now, says he wants to bring back the “Audi click” you used to get with the company’s analog controls, and improve the build quality of their interior.

Speak with Top equipmentFrascella pointed to the Audi Concept C as a North Star for the German automaker. Although the Concept C has a pair of screens, they are much smaller than we’ve come to expect from Audi – with just a 10.4-inch center screen that folds into the dashboard. It also brought back some physical controls on the steering wheel and center console.

“Tactility is very important. Big screens are not the best experience. It’s technology for technology’s sake. For us, technology is there when you need it, not when you don’t need it. This mix of digital and analog, the tactility, the perception of quality that is so important for Audi, the precision, the metal parts… we talk about the Audi click,” Frascella said. Top equipment. “These have made Audi what Audi is.”

If you take a look inside the Audi A6 or S6 E-Tron, you’ll find a 37.3-inch screen: an 11.9-inch instrument cluster, a 14.5-inch central infotainment screen and a 10.9-inch front passenger display, all of which are surrounded by not-so-nice-looking piano-black plastic bezels. Something like the Concept C goes directly against this design style, and while it’s unclear how much of it will actually trickle down to Audi’s production cars, it’s promising that Frascella is talking this way. Please note that I’m not even an anti-screen guy.

I’ll be honest, I have faith in what Frascella is up to. Before joining Audi, he spent years at Jaguar-Land Rover, working on vehicles like the Range Rover, Velar and Defender, and while those SUVs have their problems, their appearance and interior are certainly not one of them. Although you could argue that none of them really have enough physical control. I don’t know, people change.

Whatever the case, Frascella says he wants to keep Audi’s innate Germanness at the forefront, especially as its competitors – BMW and Mercedes-Benz – become increasingly graceful and flashy to appeal to buyers in China.

Audi is global, but German by nature, it is part of its identity. When brands try to appeal to everyone, they lose the essence of what they are,” he told Top Gear.

The Concept C returns to simple, solid shapes. “It’s very Audi, this solid metal feeling on the surface. The rear fender and the rear part of the cabin have a real controlled feeling of solidity. That’s the difference between organic and free form and that rigor and precision in the sections. Everything contributes to the final perception of the car.”

At this time, there are no plans to give Audi’s current range of vehicles a facelift so that it more clearly reflects Frascella’s philosophy, both inside and out. The designer says the company vision is ‘zoomed out much further’ and that you can’t just mix and match, ‘you can’t adapt, you can’t change’. In short, the Audis now on the market will have to complete their natural life cycle before being replaced by less screen-heavy vehicles that follow in the Concept C’s footsteps.