Apple recently revealed a new version of its CarPlay system for vehicles, which include gauges like speedometers. But even Apple, the company that cast aside tradition when it reinvented phones, music players and headphones, bows to convention when it comes to speedometers. It displayed a classically-styled speedometer that reached 160 mph, an auto industry norm.
That's nearly twice the highest posted speed limit in the United States, 85 mph, on a stretch of highway in Texas. Why do our speedometers stretch to a speed that's illegal, and only race-car drivers will ever reach?
Toyota spokesman Paul Hogard said the automaker wants speedometers to be easy to read, so there's value in placing the typical operating speed of American cars, 45 mph to 70 mph, he said, at the top of the speedometer, which is the easiest place on the speedometer for the driver to read. To do this — while maintaining a visually-appealing, symmetrical speedometer — requires a gauge that displays well past operating speeds, he said.
So vehicles, like some Toyota Corollas, have a 160-mph speedometer despite coming nowhere close to reaching such speeds.
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