From information aesthetics:

"Business Week reports about the latest prototype dashboard concept developed together with Smart Design: giving drivers a wealth of information in an enticing format without confusing or, worse, distracting them, proved challenging. Complex graphs or fuel usage timelines were ignored in favor for more iconographic alternatives: "Fuel gauges, for instance, are represented by an image of a tank filled with an oil-like yellow liquid".

I really enjoy looking at dashboard concepts - it is a place where there is a lot of data to monitor, the user doesn't have a lot of cognitive bandwidth to spend on the display and it has to work for millions of non-specialists.