Opinion: Car interiors are not meant to be a living room

There is this intense battle going on with my senses about which is worse in today’s cars, the screens or the seats! I was part of a jury last month and got to see a fair collection of 2025 launches. The screens have become bigger, and the seats whiter, along with interior trims in some cases. I felt I was in parliament. 

I took a photograph of a new car prepared for jury inspection. In just a couple of hours, the trim had a soiled look. I sent it to a designer friend of mine, and he candidly admitted that this was being looked into seriously. It is not just with this one car, as all cars that had this white or off-white upholstery were uniformly soiled. Unless this is a ploy to sell shampoos for the interior, I personally think this is a pretty silly idea. ‘Oh, so luxurious,’ is what some say of white interiors. But they look drab in no time in our operating conditions. 

And then you got white perforated seats, which look like the moonscape in no time. One might say that the perforation allows for ventilation – try explaining that to the poor guy who cleans your car interiors every weekend. Now, I am all for production cars being as true to their concepts as possible, but the product planner has to step in and calm the designer down about some fundamental errors, like light-coloured leather upholstery in Indian weather conditions. “Indian customers see leather as luxury” is facile logic. As is, “The lighter colours make the car look more spacious.” Unless you want to open a carwash chain for additional income, light interiors are a simple no-no, especially for mass-market cars that are used for all purposes.

Just when I thought all my angst was spent on these white upholsteries, the in-car televisions emerged. So now we can sit on white seats in front of near-panoramic screen setups and feel happy that we are uber cool. Mind you, I can vouch that those “privacy” screens are nothing as they claim to be. They are sheer driving hazards. Thankfully, some automakers have grown out of the television business and realised moderation has to be imposed. Smaller screens. And buttons or switches for key functions. In our market, it is yet to happen. And we follow what the luxury marques do, who in turn do what the rich Chinese customers want. The point is, there, everything is in order, and ADAS and all that tech overkill works – to an extent. These markets are also slowly realising the issues with going overboard. But here, we’re still smitten with these fancy features and are lapping it all up. Even ADAS – useful, yes – but we have engineers designing flyovers inspired by cricket bats and dumbbells, can’t imagine what the computers would make of that.

I hope there’s a rationalisation with tech and those white seats. After all, we are in the business of motoring. Not “lazyboy” recliners and television sets.