Mini Cooper: There is a speedometer directly behind steering wheel, in a smaller secondary instrument panel, as shown in the picture.

Toyota Yaris: Not shown in that picture is the Head Up Display projected onto the windscreen, even closer to the driver's line of sight. I drove a Yaris for a few days a while back, and the HUD is good - not distracting there's and no need to turn your head, which would be dangerous.

Citroen C4: Another HUD http://www.citroen.co.uk/about-citroen/technology/head-up-di...

Saturn ION: Seems to be the only valid example. I don't know myself, can't remember ever being in a Saturn ION. Wikipedia tells me that GM does not make them anymore.

it still seems to me that for reasons of safety , you want some instrumentation to be very close to the driver's default line of sight. Not necessarily all of it, but a few key indicators such as speed.

I drive a Yaris myself (the center display looks different than the one pictured, but the concept is the same). It doesn't have a HUD and I actually love the center display. As stated before, it is never blocked. In a turn, when a normal instrument panel is behind the steering wheel, I can still monitor the speedometer and shift gears according to the speed. Also, I totally have the road in vision when looking at the speedometer.

I know for a fact that the one in Yaris and C4 is an option... And for a while, it wasn't available in many countries. For a C4 Picasso, this is still the case.

Not sure why you think C4 comes with the HUD, but rest assured the 1999 Xsara Picasso didn't. I drove it for many years and it was fine. Glancing down at the behind-wheel display is equidistant to glancing right to Model 3's (which has the important bits in the same position, perhaps even closer to the driver, then Picasso did).

It'll be fine. Don't judge it before actually trying it for yourself.

The Scion xA and xB both had center console instrument clusters, and AFAIK neither had HUDs.

>With your traditional instrument cluster placement, the steering wheel blocks the indicators.

who cares? I'm not looking at my speedo or tack in a turn, I'm watching the road. This feels like justifying poor design with an edge case.

I have the Toyota Prius C which is based on the yaris. I absolutely love the center console indicator and hate driving cars with it behind the wheel now. I'm really glad to see more manufacturers switching to the center console displays.

Doesn't the Prius have a HUD like the Yaris, positioned directly in front of the driver and above the steering wheel?

http://www.toyota.com.au/prius/features/cutting-edge-technol...

I drive a Mini Cooper from time to time and it's not great. They have a small screen behind the wheel which also displays the speed, but with a low refresh rate so you can go over the limit easily if you don't pay attention.

The Yaris in particular must be easy to build as either a left hand drive or right hand drive vehicle. I'd hazard a guess that was a significant motivating factor for Toyota.

Or the Renault Twingo for an even more minimalistic approach:

http://i.auto-bild.de/ir_img/1/1/3/2/4/4/5/Renault-Twingo-72...

That's a Twingo from 10 years ago, right? Today it looks more like: http://indianautosblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/New-Re...

They're common in base model economy cars.

Not a good sign if the 3 is competing against the 3-series.

please do not compare properly designed center consoles, that are very close to the windshield base, to that corner-cutting excuse of a design for the model 3.

the main design flaw here is that the proximity makes it a completely different visual field than the road. while all your examples (I guess, havent clicked all, and only drove extensivly a twingo 1st gen, designed by stark studios) the distance makes your eye see the panel info while looking at the road. even more so than the behind the steering wheel models.

> One advantage is that, the indicators are never blocked when you are in a turn

This screams made up problem to excuse a potential design flaw.