Hello ID. Light! –
How the new ID. models communicate with the vehicle occupants via a light strip

ID.3 and ID.4 are the first Volkswagen models to be equipped with the new ID. Light as standard. The ID. Light lighting strip consists of 54 multi-coloured LEDs and is positioned along the underside of the windscreen. It is therefore only visible in the driver's peripheral field of vision or at certain angles from the outside. Best of all, thanks to different colours and patterns, the ID. Light shows signals that the driver and front passenger pick up intuitively so that they can concentrate even better on the road and traffic.

“We wanted a new type of communication between vehicle and human,” says Mathias Kuhn, Head of User Interface Design at Volkswagen. “It was important to create a minimalistic but special form of interaction that is both easy to understand and emotional.” This interaction between man and “machine” begins as soon as the driver sits down in the ID.3 or ID.4.

• A “welcome” animation in white and blue lights up to let the user know that the vehicle is ready for use. This is a useful hint because, unlike vehicles with combustion engines, electric vehicles do not emit any engine noises.
  An inversion of these colours is displayed when the driver leaves the vehicle again.
• If the on-board navigation system is active while driving, the ID. Light shows the next directions with an animated blue line – for example, flowing left for left turns.
• Depending on whether the driver or front passenger activates the voice control in the vehicle, the ID. Light answers in white in front of the respective vehicle occupant.
• Incoming telephone calls are announced with a soft green flash in the central area.
• In the event of an emergency stop, on the other hand, the ID. Light flashes bright red.
• This function is particularly useful during the charging process too: when the ID.3 or ID.4 is connected to a charging station, the ID. Light pulses with a green status bar and gives its owner a clear view of the battery's state of charge, even from a distance and from the outside.

With more and more assistance systems and screens in modern vehicles, the demands on the driver's attention are also increasing. “The bigger the screens in the vehicle get, the more time it takes to look at the display and process all the information,” says Dr Stefan Franke, one of the developers of the component. “For example, when you hear a navigation message that specifies a direction, you still need to mentally transfer this information to assign this statement to the correct direction. It was therefore important to find new ways to communicate intuitively with the driver and minimise the risk of distraction,” explains Franke, who was responsible for the development over a period of four years.

The Research and Development departments invested many hours into the features in order to conquer this challenge and make the ID. Light both simple and smart. And this was successful because ID. Light does not display two “messages” at once. It is programmed to only display the most important data at a given time. Positioned at the bottom of the windscreen, it is in the driver's peripheral field of vision, allowing drivers to perceive the signals without having to take their eyes off the road.

All colours and animations follow a carefully composed visual language that is friendly, universal and easy to understand – giving drivers the information they need while keeping their eyes on the road. “We wanted to develop an assistant, a companion in the vehicle, that presents all the necessary information at exactly the right time in such a way that it can be intuitively understood by the driver,” says Sascha Ziebart, Project Manager at Volkswagen. “It doesn't feel like you're “talking” to another machine, but more like the vehicle is accompanying you in all situations and looking out for you.”

“We can carefully expand our functions and visual symbols based on customer feedback and new technologies,” says Thorb Baumgarten, Human Factors Specialist at Volkswagen. “The ID. Light for driver-vehicle communication can become a model for many future innovations in this field.”