dashboards

BYD makes many of its own parts, including electric motors, dashboards, bodies and even headlights.

BYD also makes many of its own parts, including electric motors, dashboards, and bodies, using its huge scale — 3 million vehicles sold worldwide last year — for cost savings.

But he warned: "In my seat you tend to look at dashboards of indicators and there are needles on that dashboard that are moving in the wrong direction."

The company, which sells seats, dashboards, electronics, lighting and fuel systems to automakers, reported quarterly sales of 6.53 billion euros, up 10.7% organically from a year earlier and 700 basis points above global car production.

Technology companies from Google to Apple and Amazon are in a race to control carmakers' dashboards as software becomes an integral part of car design.