Andre: Hey,guys. It's Andre from the High Performance Academy.
We're here with Joseph from Auto Meter.
Now Auto Meter have just released their brand new
full color dash display.
I wanted to just take some time to talk to Joseph
about how that came about.
Joseph, it's a pretty awesome looking display.
We were talking a little bit earlier
and you said that the development of this
has actually come out of NASCAR
which is quite interesting.
NASCAR has kind of always been known
for their older technology.
You guys are already doing pretty good.
You kind of had the old-style gauges.
You had the tach o's, oil pressure, etc., in those cars.
How did it all turn to digital?
Joseph: When NASCAR made the switch over to EFI,
McClaren was brought in to manage sort of
the ignition and fuel function of that.
As part of that progression in new technology
NASCAR wanted to update the way
that information was displayed to the driver
so working directly with our teams
and working with the engineers at McLaren,
we put together our LCD dash display system.
To integrate it directly with their CAN bus
as well as use some discreet sensors
things that weren't on the McLaren CAN bus
that were critical for driver communication.
Andre: So you can take all of the data
from the McLaren control ECU in the NASCAR,
but you can also add in additional sensors
if the teams want?
Joseph: That's correct. That's correct.
It's an incredibly robust platform
where we can integrate with CAN serial bus data,
or CAN bus data, serial bus data.
We can use every variety of discreet sender
that we're aware of existing be that
pulse analog, zero to five volt, resistive sensors
and that can all be configured within the software suite
that's included with the dash.
Andre: So this dash unit you've got,
is this solely a display unit
or can the teams actually data log
through that dash as well.
Joseph: Depending on the configuration
there is full data acquisition capabiities
built into the dash.
We can sample every channel at 500 times a second
for a 48 hour endurance race.
That can be integrated with our digital video solution
so we can have four cameras and then overlay
that data within that program.
Andre: This technology is being developed
for NASCAR, obviously everything sort of trickles down
the line to the straight categories.
This product isn't quite available yet for street cars?
Joseph: Street applications we are looking
at shipping likely January, February, early 2014.
You can see the car we have in the booth here
has one of them.
They'll be competing in the Optima Invitational this weekend.
The Detroit Speed Camaro is also running
the dash for the invitational.
We've been strategically testing the device
with some of our core race teams that we work with
over the year to really get the product
dialed in and perfect before it's shipping
out to the general public.
Andre: One other thing I want to touch on
on the dash as well is you've got an integrated shift light
basically a LED array that you can use
for a shift light function. Yes?
Joseph: Yeah, correct, not only shift light warning indication.
That's totally configurable.
They are multi-color LEDs so the user can pick
the colors when they illuminate whether they want
a progressive shift, move in, move out, move across.
The goal really is improving driver safety.
We want the driver focused straight ahead
and then the dash with its super bright LEDs
is able to communicate to the driver
when there's something they potentially need
to pay attention to.
Integrated with the software as well
you'll see some of the different screens here.
If say a temperature issue is present,
you'll get those warnings,
but then the temperature gauge will blow up
in the screen and become very large
to say this is what we need
to be paying attention to right now.
Andre: That for me is one of the big advantages
that I've seen.
Obviously, over the years we've had a shift away
from the old analog style gauges which Auto Meter
are still obviously very well-known for.
The problem when you've got that is say
maybe you've got five or six gauges,
maybe you've got oil temperature, oil pressure,
fuel pressure.
It's really hard for the driver
to actually focus on those gauges.
You're trying to do the job.
You're trying to drive the car and give 100%
of your focus to that so seeing one of those gauges
go outside a parameter is really difficult.
Now the advantage with these new digital displays
we're seeing from a lot of manufacturers
and now Auto Meter, is you can set those parameters
so if anything does go out of order,
it'll bring on that warning light
so straightaway it's bringing the driver's
attention to, "Hey, something's not right."
Look at the dash and straightaway you know what that is.
That's a huge advantage to the driver. Yes?
Joseph: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Again, it's focusing on the job at hand.
Back in the day we'd see the analog gauges
where the driver would have them clocked
to a certain position so the needle faced straight up.
Then we moved on to our Elite series gauges
where they had different color warning indications.
The gauges would change color as they were moving.
One of the things that teams liked with that
was they could set the color for normal operation to off
where the gauge didn't call any attention to itself.
It was operating within the specified parameters.
Then if something was wrong it would light up.
This is just taking that to the next level.
In a perfect world you're winning races.
Nothing is going wrong with the car.
You shouldn't even be looking at it,
but when things go wrong or when life happens,
it's great to have a system that integrates
as seamlessly as possible into the driving experience.
Andre: Lastly, I just want to talk I guess
about where this technology is going.
As I said, Auto Meter are well-known
for your existing range of analog gauges.
Is that a range that you see might start tapering off
with these full color displays coming in?
Or is that something that's still going
to be a huge amount of demand for?
Joseph: We think it's really in addition
to our core product line.
It serves as a halo product of sorts.
I mean it's definitely designed
for the professional race team,
but we see that technology trickle down
through our core lines as well.
Obviously, we're grateful for the position
we've held in the market for a very long time,
and we never want to neglect what our
core competencies are.
Auto Meter is an engineering firm.
The technology that goes into this dash is
some of the same technology that we use
in black boxes for F16 fighter jets,
or digital video systems for solid fuel rocket boosters.
The giant squid that was discovered was using
a stack digital video recording technology.
Andre: I guess the other question I've got
and I know everyone watching will want to know
is it too early for us to get an indication
of a price point on this product?
Joseph: We are expecting and obviously these are
configured to the individual applications,
but we would expect the systems to come in
somewhere in the $4,500 range.
What we looked at in that market segment was
really systems that companies like Magneti Marelli
or Bosch were doing that they do a fantastic job with.
We wanted to mirror that function set
and then add a number of other options and features
in a ruggedized extreme environment housing.
That market segment is the $8,000 to $12,000 range,
but due to our economies of scale we were able
to get the price to a level that's more affordable
for the professional race team.
Andre: Okay, Joseph, great product.
Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us.
Joseph: No. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
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