Terminology: Dashboard
02/24/2021
There are terms that are used without thinking about whether they actually still do justice to their original meaning. One of these is the "dashboard". According to Wikipedia, it is defined as follows: "A dashboard is a display or instrument panel with gauges and control levers (dashboards) of a machine."
In the early days of automotive engineering, although not at the very beginning, a (wooden) board actually served as the basis for attaching displays/instruments for monitoring driving conditions and technical health.
But other materials were soon introduced, such as sheet steel, aluminum or plastic. Nevertheless, some car manufacturers did not want to do without wood and fitted a (wood) veneer over the metal or plastic structure. If this was too expensive or too complex, the wood structure could also be painted onto the metal or wood-like plastic covers could be installed.
Nowadays, however, there are hardly any cars with a wooden look around the instruments. The dashboard has long since given way to a "cockpit" and by the time you look at a Tesla at the latest, there are no longer even any dashboards or instruments in the narrower sense. Bye bye, dashboard.
