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27 When you go to the Faurecia ( faurecia. com ) showroom in Auburn Hills, Michigan, Olivier Boinais, industrial design manager, and his colleague Jay Hutchins, director of Marketing & Product Planning, Interior Systems, start talking about "Qi." Which is initially confusing, because they're pointing to a model of an instrument panel, not referencing ancient Greece or Chinese culture. But it becomes clear that it is closer to the latter than the former, as the Chinese "qi" refers to a natural energy source, and the Qi they're talking about has to do with energy, but in the form of an inductive wireless charging system that has been developed and codifed by the Wireless Charging Consortium ( wirelesschargingconsortium.com ). And you think you're there to learn about interiors. (And while on the subject of things global, Faurecia is headquartered in France.) But a critically important part of developing interior systems, you learn, has to do with addressing the infotainment needs of automotive customers. The instrument panel in question is named "Smart Dock." There are two horizontal brackets in the central area of the IP. These brackets move up and down, thereby providing the means by which both smartphones and phablets can be held in place. (The Qi system is behind the surface of the IP, so the inductive charging occurs as the device is in position.) "In other regions of the world," Hutchins says, "lower-cost vehicles may not have a full entertainment system." They may not have any entertainment system. "But even though the drivers may have lower-cost vehicles, they are still carrying around smartphones and tablets. So they can dock their device. It can actually run an entertainment system. The vehicle would still have an amplifer and speakers, but not a head unit." This would require there p The Performance 2.0 concept. Note the absence of things like traditional gauges and knobs. The heads-up display provides relevant vehicle information. Smartphone connectivity helps with everything from identifying the driver to powering the audio selections. One way to get economies in automotive interiors is to not replicate what the driver probably already has—an infotainment device in the form of a smartphone. This is one strategy that Faurecia is pursuing. 0514ADP FEATURE Interiors.indd 27 4/22/2014 1:31:47 PM