Is this the first in-car navigation hardware to use multi-core processor performance? I have had a quick scan around and I cannot find anything similar.
NEC's NaviEngine1 has no fewer than four ARM11 MPcores carrying out multi-processing. With all that processing power it requires a fast internal bus and so NEC has integrated a Serial ATA interface.
It won't make the car go any faster but it will process multiple data streams for vehicle location, driving directions and navigation functions. And the numbers wouldn't be that disappointing for an entry-level PC - that is a 1920Mips processor running at 400MHz.
So multiple screen grahics will be a piece of cake with its PowerVR SGX 535 graphics core.
For the operating system NEC suggest the eT-Kernel multi-core edition by eSOL. Certainly worth a closer look.