Porsche might display battery status on its electric cars using HOLOGRAMS

Porsche is looking into displaying EV battery status on its charging flap using... holograms. Yep, the carmaker has detailed "a holographic unit for holographically displaying the status information over a surface of the motor vehicle" with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office.

The document wording said Porsche would look to make the visual display capable of updating in real-time, and it’s proposing the info shown could include battery charge levels, estimated charging time and error messages if there’s been a problem. It doesn't mention if the data includes next week’s winning lottery numbers, disappointingly.

Coyly (and very Germanically) entitled “Display system for displaying status information of a motor vehicle and motor vehicle”, not only does Porsche think a holographic charging flap display would look futuristically cool, but it would also be useful (via the use of LiDar or another sensor) for hygiene purposes for the device to be able to respond to hand gestures, too.

The application explains that such gestures could prompt either a visual or auditory response from the car - 'wingardium leviosa!' is probably not on the list of acceptable sounds – and we’re also told it would likely be equipped with artificial intelligence so the charging flap image could get cleverer with time.

Frankly, we're struggling to visualise said tech without images (there were no drawings attached to the application). If the car is in the process of charging, surely the charging flap would be out of sight to allow access to the socket?

But that’s OK, because Porsche is also looking into displays that use smart glass, exploring whether it could turn a panoramic glass roof into some kind of giant infotainment screen.

A second patent application details how AI would help the pixels to keep their colour in daylight, enabling battery status info, or animations to inhibit the space.

At night it imagines some kind of ingenuously cool personal stargazing observatory, identifying "representations of the position of celestial bodies, such as planets, the moon, constellations", which of course sounds very cool.

Anyway, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen holographic ideas from carmakers. While some can be more left-field (Ford, we’re looking at you), others, such as BMW’s HoloActive Touch and Theatre Screen, are more practical. What do you think of this one?