About a week ago I got in my car and started it up like normal only to find the instrument panel – the thing that displays important things like your speed and state of charge – dark. I wasn’t going very far so I just went to my destination and figured it would reboot after the car sat for a bit. It did not. Just as I was starting to worry I started the car again and it came back – hooray! My victory was short lived because it shut off a minute later.

Since then it has come back randomly (or partially) for a minute or two but it has stayed dead 90% of the time. Interestingly, it seems as though not only can I not see my speed, but the car actually doesn’t know my speed either because my average speed and efficiency are usually displayed in the infotainment system but are now blank. The time is also blank, so I think some important things are routed through the instrument panel to the infotainment system. However, aside from that the car drives and charges fine. I can check my state of charge in the app and once I dug out an old iPhone and connected Apple Carplay I was able to see my speed in the center console using Waze.

In the bit of looking I have done online it seems to be a not uncommon issue with these digital instrument panels and the only fix is to replace them. I am lucky that I’ve still got a few months left on the limited warranty so I have not tried to diagnose it myself and am just hoping that it won’t suddenly come back to life as soon as it gets to the dealership. I will update once I get it checked out.