Methods and vehicle interfaces are provided. One example method includes receiving, by a cloud processing service, data from a vehicle over a wireless network. The data includes information usable to identify a user account. The user account is accessible by one or more processing entities of the cloud processing service to identify a profile of a user. The profile of the user includes preferences of the user for the vehicle and learned behavior data of the user for the vehicle. Confirming, by one or more of said process entities, an identity of the user. Identifying, by one or more of said process entities, the preferences of the user responsive to confirming said identity of the user. Sending, by one or more of said process entities, the preferences of the user for the vehicle to electronics of the vehicle. The preferences including an assignment of control functions and associated display interface data to be rendered on display screen of a plurality of dials of a control interface of the vehicle. Each one of the plurality of dials is configured to render different display interface data based on the assignment of types of control functions selected for each of the plurality of dials. The preferences of the user are saved to memory of the vehicle for use with the user profile and saved to storage of the cloud processing service.

An indicator assembly is disclosed having a first light source and a second light source positioned relative to a surface. An overlap region may be formed between the first light source and second light source depending upon the relative intensity of the light sources, which may be used to convey information to a user and/or to provide an alternative visual indicator of a gauge.

Methods and systems are provided, for sharing mobile device applications with a vehicle computer. One example method includes detecting a mobile device present in a vehicle, by a vehicle computer of the vehicle and generating a user interface on a display screen of the vehicle, as instructed by the vehicle computer. The method further includes identifying by the vehicle computer, a plurality of native applications of the vehicle for the user interface and identifying a plurality of mobile device applications from the mobile device for the user interface, while the mobile devices is present in the vehicle. The method enables system controls, using the vehicle computer, to enable access to the plurality of native applications and the plurality of mobile device applications, the system controls including one or more of button inputs of the vehicle, touch screen inputs via the user interface of the display screen of the vehicle, and voice input via microphones of the vehicle.

An electric vehicle having an electric motor is provided. The electric vehicle having a receptacle slot integrated in the electric vehicle. The receptacle slot provides an electrical connection for providing power to the electric motor. A battery having an elongated form factor, where a first end of the elongated form factor includes a handle and a second end of the elongated form factor includes a connection for interfacing with the electrical connection of the receptacle slot of the vehicle, when the battery is slid into the receptacle slot for electrical engagement. The battery is configured to store and supply charge to power the electric motor of the electric vehicle and the battery is replaceable by sliding the battery out of the receptacle slot and sliding in another battery into the receptacle slot to further supply charge to power the electric motor of the electric vehicle with said another battery. The battery and said another battery each have a respective handle that is accessible for enabling hand-removal and hand-insertion of said battery and said another battery out of and into the receptacle slot. A computer on-board the electric vehicle is interfaced with the electrical connection of the receptacle slot to obtain a level of charge of the battery present in the receptacle slot. A battery level indicator of the electric vehicle provides information regarding the level of charge of the battery in the receptacle slot. A system for storing and charging batteries usable by the electric vehicle is further provided. In some examples, the batteries are additionally or alternatively recharged using green sources, such as wind or solar.

A dial plate being nonopaque is in a disc shape. A slit member has slits each extending through the slit member in a thickness direction. A light source is located on an opposite side of the slit member from the dial plate. The light source is configured to emit light through the slits of the slit member toward the dial plate to project images on the dial plate.

Among screen data in which screens for displaying sets of application information generated by a plurality of application units (30-60) in a normal display form are drawn and screen data in which screens for displaying the sets of application information in a simplified display form are drawn, screen data with the screen for normal display is selected for the application data matched to an intended-use of each display device, and screen data with the screen for simplified display is selected for the application data unmatched to the intended use of each display device, to thereby generate based on these selected screen data, display-screen data for each display device.

Methods and systems are provided. One method includes receiving, by a server, data from a vehicle over a wireless network. The data includes information usable to identify a user account. The user account being accessible by the server to identify a profile of a user, and the profile of the user includes preferences of the user and learned behavior of the user. The method further includes receiving, by the server, a geo-location of the vehicle for a time of day. Then, identifying, by the server, supplemental content that is available for sending to the vehicle based on the geo-location of the vehicle. The method includes filtering, by the server, the supplemental content based on a contextual analysis of one or more preferences of the user, the learned behavior of the user, the time of day and the geo-location of the vehicle. Said filtering eliminates sending supplemental content to the vehicle for display that is predicted to have a likelihood of not being used or preferred by the user based on said contextual analysis. The method includes sending, by the server, supplemental content to the vehicle for display to a screen or output via a speaker of the vehicle, the supplemental content that is sent is not filtered out from being sent to the vehicle.

An electric vehicle having an electric motor is provided. The electric vehicle having a receptacle slot integrated in the electric vehicle. The receptacle slot provides an electrical connection for providing power to the electric motor. A battery having an elongated form factor, where a first end of the elongated form factor includes a handle and a second end of the elongated form factor includes a connection for interfacing with the electrical connection of the receptacle slot of the vehicle, when the battery is slid into the receptacle slot for electrical engagement. The battery is configured to store and supply charge to power the electric motor of the electric vehicle and the battery is replaceable by sliding the battery out of the receptacle slot and sliding in another battery into the receptacle slot to further supply charge to power the electric motor of the electric vehicle with said another battery. The battery and said another battery each have a respective handle that is accessible for enabling hand-removal and hand-insertion of said battery and said another battery out of and into the receptacle slot. A computer on-board the electric vehicle is interfaced with the electrical connection of the receptacle slot to obtain a level of charge of the battery present in the receptacle slot. A battery level indicator of the electric vehicle provides information regarding the level of charge of the battery in the receptacle slot. A system for storing and charging batteries usable by the electric vehicle is further provided. In some examples, the batteries are additionally or alternatively recharged using green sources, such as wind or solar.

A clustered instrument panel on a display of a dashboard in a transportation apparatus is disclosed. The clustered instrument panel may be used to combine multiple individual instrument panels, such as the odometer, tachometer, temperature meter, battery meter, navigation screen and any other instrument panels that are traditionally presented separate and independent from other instrument panels. The individual instrument panels may be layered on top of each other to form the clustered instrument panel, with gradual increase in size from the first instrument panel to the nth instrument panel. Information associated with a given instrument panel in the clustered instrument panel may be presented in the gap area between the given instrument panel and the neighbor instrument panel in the clustered instrument panel. In one embodiment, the clustered instrument panel is a triple-circle meter.

Embodiments are disclosed for systems and methods for operating a display actuator to provide user-configurable actions. An example device for a human-machine interface includes a display on a first surface of the device, an input interface adapted to detect one or more of touch input, rotation input, and push input directed to the device, a controller configured to generate control instructions based on input received from the input interface, the control instructions including display instructions for controlling output on the display, and an output interface configured to send at least a subset of the control instructions from the controller to a receiving device, the device being removably coupled to the receiving device.