Are You Not Infotained?! New In-Car Screen Tech Is Jaw-Dropping
From holographic HUDs, to transparent displays, to new tech that allows driver visibility of passenger screens to be switchable.
There was no shortage of display tech on, well, display at the 2025 CES—and a lot of it previewed the future of in-car screens. Here are the top automotive (or promising, would-be automotive) display technologies we spotted at the electronics show:
Holographic Head-Up Displays
Sorry, if you’re picturing a Princess-Leia-like 3D depiction of infotainment, prepare to be disappointed. Two companies at CES 2025 showed “holographic displays” in various states of readiness.
Each reflects two-dimensional info back from a screen either mounted on or sandwiched inside the windshield. Neither produces an image that appears to float out over the hood—info on both appears to be right on the windshield. Both displays look way brighter than today’s typical reflected HUDs, and each remains clearly visible through polarized sunglasses regardless of head tilting. Crucial to each is the incorporation of a holographic optical element (HOE), designed to diffract light back toward the driver within a specified field of view. This optical diffraction ensures more light reaches the observer’s eyes than is possible with current technologies that merely reflect some percentage of light projected at the windshield inward back toward the driver or passenger, and the directional nature makes passenger-side displays inherently invisible to the driver (and vice versa).
Hyundai Mobis and Zeiss Corporate supplier subsidiary Hyundai Mobis teamed up with German optical company Zeiss to develop its holographic diffraction layer. On the demonstration vehicle, this prototype HOE layer was applied to the inside of the windshield of a Kia EV9 as can clearly be seen above, and it was illuminated by a DLP projector at 1152 x 576 resolution from 9.8 inches away (more compact projector packaging is another benefit of these holographic HUDs relative to earlier designs reliant on thin-film-transistor displays. A key differentiator between the Hyundai Mobis and Ceres approaches is that the Zeiss optics are produced by analog means, whereas the Ceres/Covestro HOE is digitally produced.
Hyundai offered a comparison indicating the brightness of the image refracted by its HOE, as compared with the same image reflected back from a screen (total claimed brightness is 5,000 nits). That’s partly because the screen can be seen at extreme angles to the side, while the HOE focuses its refracted light in a narrower beam. Hyundai Mobis published a “goal of launching as early as 2027.”
Ceres Holographics/Covestro/Eastman Optical elements and photonics experts Ceres Holographics teamed with the polymers pros at Covestro to design an optical photopolymer layer, known as Bayfol HX, and then involved windshield pros at Eastman to integrate the system. The team has even developed a HoloFlekt machine capable of producing this HOE layer in an edge-to-edge design ready to insert into an Eastman Saflex windshield. Ceres claims digital mastering is quicker and easier to set up, and results in greater brightness because the optics are generated pixel by pixel, rather than all at once.
One big challenge Ceres has already overcome by working with Eastman was developing a windshield laminating process that wouldn’t disturb the optical properties of the HOE, and yet still passed all windshield safety tests. Ceres also touted their digital design, projection, and printing of the HOE as enabling more flexibility in windshield contours and placement of the projector (which here uses LED technology capable of 11,000–21,000 nits luminance), enabling extreme projection angles that even make HUDs possible on the near vertical windshields of a semi tractor or bus. Ceres targets 2028 for series production.
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Transparent Displays
MicroLED technology, which has been in production on consumer electronics, had itself “an automotive moment” at CES 2025, enabling all sorts of use cases for see-through images and lighting. They promise lower cost of ownership, can easily be laminated to or inside glass, and offer clear-state light transmissibility as high as 85 percent depending on pixels-per-inch image resolution. Some manufacturers even suggested micro-solar photovoltaics could be integrated into their clear rooftop displays.
Virtual Sky Canopy Taiwan-based display manufacturer AUO demonstrated a vehicle where the panoramic roof and rear side windows incorporate thin, transparent, touch-sensitive MicroLED displays capable of displaying immersive fireworks displays, or depicting starry constellation maps, or of being surrounded by an aquarium. We’re talking full immersion 360-degree theater. AUO quoted 55-percent light transmissibility in the clear state, and an impressive 2 percent when “displaying” black—that’s considerably better light blockage than electochromic or LCD dimming solutions can deliver.
AUO’s XR Interactive Touchscreen Window enables passengers to play virtual augmented reality games today, while future applications may allow passengers to click on objects visible in the window to obtain more information about them. Note that for this to work, there must also be an interior camera capable of identifying the passenger’s eye-point and 360-degree exterior cameras with AI to determine what the viewer is looking at and circling on the window. Of course, images are visible from outside as well as inside, so another use case is projecting info like battery state of charge or perhaps geotagged opportunity advertising, to earn the vehicle owner extra cash from local businesses.
Continental demonstrated a much lower cost window projection option for the exterior advertising solution. Here, a film laminated into the glass displays images from a small roof-mounted projector about the size of two decks of cards. When nothing’s showing, the foil-type film transmits 50 percent of incoming light. Projecting black cuts visibility from the outside in to 5 percent. The image is not as easily viewed from inside. Conti also offers sound transducers that can play audio with the image, using the door skin as a speaker, which is also audible inside and so envisioned as a feature used when parked (it consumes 25 watts of power).
Horizon Image Glass' immense pillar-to-pillar clear display enhances forward visibility while delivering the rich info customers demand today and keeping all eyes up closer to the road.
Or how about a see-through center high-mount stop light (CHMSL)? Osram showed off LED lighting that could shine through metallic, piano black, or clear surfaces, allowing 85 percent light transmissibility when off.
Rain Technologies Switchable Privacy Displays
Passenger infotainment displays (PIDs) are proliferating across top model variants in many segments, so there’s a burgeoning market for methods of ensuring drivers can’t watch movies or other distracting content on these screens. Rain Technologies was born out of the RealD Cinema company, known for its 3D movies. Rain already produces screens that cannot be viewed except from dead ahead for ATMs, mobile phones and tablets, and now it’s turning its attention to automotive screens. There are several approaches to blocking screen visibility from the sides, but few make this feature switchable, and no others are known to offer a choice of black, metallic, or a logo image being visible when privacy mode is engaged, as Rain’s does.
rain
Rain’s tech stack features a proprietary backlight shining six different layers, including a liquid crystal polarizer capable of switching the side-glance visibility on and off. Rain’s patented tech adds thin optical layers to the front or back of the display panel (when in front, it just looks black). It’s compatible with standard LCDs and future OLED flat or curved automotive displays. Privacy mode can be switched on or off in under a millisecond, manually or automatically. The technology can enable as little as 0.3 percent screen visibility from a 45-degree viewing angle. The approach is compatible with OLED, LCD, mini-LED and micro-LED displays.
I started critiquing cars at age 5 by bumming rides home from church in other parishioners’ new cars. At 16 I started running parts for an Oldsmobile dealership and got hooked on the car biz. Engineering seemed the best way to make a living in it, so with two mechanical engineering degrees I joined Chrysler to work on the Neon, LH cars, and 2nd-gen minivans. Then a friend mentioned an opening for a technical editor at another car magazine, and I did the car-biz equivalent of running off to join the circus. I loved that job too until the phone rang again with what turned out to be an even better opportunity with Motor Trend. It’s nearly impossible to imagine an even better job, but I still answer the phone…
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