Automotive Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) are increasingly crucial in modern vehicles, and understanding their evolution helps clarify past advancements and future directions. This article defines automotive HMI and analyzes its development through a structured review of 154 historical car models. It identifies three major goals—capability, interaction, and intelligence—and outlines seven evolutionary directions including function scope, online resources, ambiance creation, interface folding, interaction types, modality diversity, and intelligent decision-making. These concepts frame the discussion across five distinct phases of automotive HMI development: early phase, budding phase, explosive phase, diverse phase, and AI empowered phase. Concluding with a forward-looking perspective, the article forecasts the integration of AI Generative Content in automotive systems, proposing design recommendations that leverage AI to enhance the adaptiveness and intuitiveness of future automotive interfaces.