What is a car infotainment system?

Rewind the clock to the 1980s and you were considered lucky if the infotainment offering in your vehicle consisted of an FM radio and a dog-eared copy of an AA Road Atlas strewn upon the parcel shelf.

Crystal-clear touchscreens with constantly-connected digital navigation and a plethora of interactive applications wouldn’t arrive until the 2010s, with Tesla arguably reinventing what it meant to introduce smartphone and tablet-like technology into a car.

A neat portmanteau of information and entertainment, the humble infotainment system is designed to do just that: offer important vehicle information, alongside things like radio and other audio services.

Most vehicles sported whatever audio technology was big at the time, be it an AM/FM radio tuner, a cassette tape deck or a CD player, with most European manufacturers opting to introduce the Deutsches Institut für Normung (or DIN) standard for most vehicle head units. Put simply, it’s a fancy name given for the slot where a head unit sits in the dash - made to a universal measurement so it can easily be removed, replaced or updated.