Marcos Nolan

A collection of work done on the Arcimoto EVs' interior dashboard gauges and other visually interactive elements, encompassing function, layout, and visual identity. Updated as necessary to include new work. ————— Gen3 ————— Lacking a gasoline engine, the Arcimoto EV demands an atypical set of information to be provided to the driver, blending a majority of elements common to most vehicles with pieces of information unique to the nature of the battery-powered experience. Notably, the drivetrains utilized by the Arcimoto EVs have never required the shifting of gears, thanks to the use of electric motors with impressive torque capacity. As a result, many of my concepts incorporated an amp-meter in lieu of an RPM indicator. Given that the amount of power drained is directly correlated to the pressure the driver puts on the 'gas' pedal, this feature is roughly analagous to an RPM indicator on a typical gas car.

ABOVE LEFT: Visually highlighting the amp-meter and linking the effect of higher levels on battery charge: the amp-meter fills in the same direction as the battery percent gauge empties. As number of amps increases and battery percent decreases, the meters change colors accordingly. ABOVE RIGHT: Early Gen3 dashboard gauge concepts.

Gen3 was equipped with a battery pack that allowed for a 30 mile range (with an extra 30 that could be used in emergencies, at the cost of battery pack life expectancy). Given that the average gas car drives 300 miles on a single tank fillup, anyone driving Gen3 would naturally need to keep an eye on the vehicle's charge level somewhat more judiciously than usual. Some of my early concepts focused on highlighting the amp-meter and sometimes closely linking it visually to the battery charge indicator, in an effort to keep the driver conscious of their driving habits and their battery charge at all times. My later interior concepts on Gen3 streamlined the dash elements, removing the amp-meter and featuring a split dash design, with gauges and indicators being placed within two recesses on either side of the steering wheel within the driver's view.

ABOVE TOP: The two dash pods envisioned for Gen3. ABOVE LEFT: Dashboard iconography and visual cues. ABOVE RIGHT: A 3D view of the layers necessary to produce the dashboard imagery: a transparency sheet with blocks of color (backlit by individual LEDs), followed by two sheets to mask out the icon shapes. ————— Gen4 ————— Dropping the horizontal split view design utilized on earlier concepts, Gen4 saw incremental advances in dash layout design, and major steps forward in methods of real-world construction and implementation. Methods for creating an interior experience comparable to that of major-brand vehicles were devised and refined.

Dash concepts during this phase were heavily inspired by the possibilities of edge-lit etched plexiglass, which carried a uniquely futuristic and stylish appeal. Most concepts included some form of the technology to display dash elements that were not required to change dynamically. Earlier concepts featured rotating needles similar to those used by many production vehicles for conveying vehicle speed and RPM. Later concepts would drop these, aiming for the simplicity and sleekness conveyed by simple numbers.

ABOVE: An earlier concept depicting the layers necessary to incorporate the edge-lit plexiglass idea: icon sheet backlit by individual LEDs below, and etched plexiglass on top. TOP RIGHT: Real-world photograph illustrating the etched glow effect.

ABOVE LEFT: A collection of speedometer styling experiments. RIGHT: Experiments in relaying information via low-fidelity dot matrix displays. The creation of professonal-quality dashboard elements was an involved process. Numerous layers of materials were required to achieve the appearance, and much research went into selecting the proper OEM components to suit our needs. Below is an example of the layers required for one concept devised midway through Gen4's development.

ABOVE: A: The lowest layer, featuring the OEM LCD components used for depicting the speedo, battery level, and various other bits of information. B: The layer of LED lights for backlighting icons. C: A thicker layer of solid material, meant to eliminate LED backlight bleed from one icon to another. D: A transparency layer with translucent colors corresponding to the icons that would be masked out with ... E: a transparency layer colored solid black except for the icon shapes. F: The top layer of edge-lit plexiglass.

ABOVE: An assortment of dash layout ideations. Despite sharing many characteristics with typical vehicles, the Arcimoto EVs have always differed in various ways, necessitating atypical information to be passed to the driver. For example, given that the engine doesn't 'lock' in the same way that gas engines do, the Arcimoto EV requires the use of the emergency brake at all times to prevent the vehicle from traveling unexpectedly while turned off. The following slideshow depicts the informational changes revealed to the driver during a session of startup, driving, and turning off the vehicle.

ABOVE: A: Off (Charging) B: Startup C: Welcome Screen D: Normal Operation E: Off (Engage Brake Warning) ————— Gen6 ————— The dash design process for Gen6 went quite quickly, following up as it did on the extensive work done during Gen4. After development of the dashboard surfacing was complete, it took relatively little time to develop a working concept for the layout of gauges and other information to be housed within.

ABOVE: A: An off-the-shelf motorcycle speedometer component to be placed within the dash structure. B: A layer of etched plexiglass to convey unchanging visual elements and provide a shield for the components behind. C: A transparency layer with shapes for icons in appropriate colors, to be placed behind the plexiglass layer.

————— Gen7-8 ————— Starting with Gen7, steps were taken to move many of the icons, previously required to be separate from one another and individually lit, to an area within a single screen, at times anywhere from 5-8 inches diagonal in size. This has simplified the process of dashboard creation immensely, and allows for a certain degree of freedom in terms of visual aesthetics not previously possible.

Recent UI work has been developed with the screens of cell phones and tablets in mind, as such personal devices could effectively double as a 'key' without which the vehicle would not function

ABOVE: A number of concepts exploring slight changes within a coherent visual aesthetic. My initial concepts for Gen8's dash display were slightly more stylized than the direction ultimately chosen, which features a large speedometer number and more basic visual elements