One of the more obscure items I’ve encountered at the ITS World Congress in Detroit during the last few days was the Ford Police Interceptor sedan in the lobby. What looked like a plain white Taurus on steelies had an interior change that Ford hasn’t previously talked about, a 12.1-inch touchscreen display in the center console.

Looking much like a smaller version of the display in the Tesla Model S, for this application, it is designed as an alternative to ruggedized laptops most police vehicles are equipped with. The computer driving the display can toggle between Windows and Android is capable of running all the apps typically used by police on patrol.

In the event of an accident, this setup poses much less risk to the driver than a laptop mounted in the car. The system costs roughly the same as the ruggedized laptops that police agencies typically use and is now in production for the both the Taurus-based PI sedan and the Explorer-based PI utility.

Now that Ford has done this for the cop vehicles, how long before we see something like this implemented in Ford’s civilian vehicles?