With its latest design concept, the BMW Group is showcasing what the next generation of vehicles will look like and it is not that far off. The ‘Vision Neue Klasse’ combines innovation in the core areas of automotive electrification and digitalisation as well as design. BMW expect that this new look into the future era of motoring may well appear as early as 2025. It’s a radical step forward.
The Vision
Unveiled as a concept a little earlier this year, the car embodies a clear design language, with expansive surfaces and just a few distinctive lines, that have been pared down to the essentials. It is this base that will carry the German brand forward. Naturally, distinctive features remain like the BMW kidney grille and the ‘Hofmeister’ kink of the side window graphic, giving the modern design even more of a BMW feel.
The powerful wheel arches and steeply forward-slanting “shark nose” front-end are all characteristic BMW features. 21 inch aerodynamic wheels pay tribute to the classic cross-spoke design inspired by motor sports. At the same time, the vehicle body, as if carved from a single piece, has strong indentations at the front and rear, as well as huge window areas. This is the picture BMW have created.
On the concept, the luminous exterior paintwork has a subtle yellow hue, underscoring the future-oriented, lifestyle personality of the BMW Vision Neue Klasse. Contrast is provided by black side skirts and bumpers. With a very high percentage of secondary raw materials, the idea is to aid sustainability and, hopefully not too ominously, an improved dismantling concept will also help optimise recycling of the vehicles of the class of the future.
A fresh interpretation of the brand's signature design elements, like the BMW kidney grille and double headlights, transform the vehicle’s front-end into a single interaction area. Elements in the lower portion of the side windows also feature in the exterior, directing attention to the sensor area that activates automatic door opening. Innovative technology similarly defines the design of the rear lights, with 3D-printed light elements that extend over several levels and are controlled in a targeted manner to create a unique impression of depth.
Imaginative Interior
On the inside, the next generation of BMW iDrive guarantees a unique digital user experience that merges real and virtual worlds, so they say. A fully-electric drive train with sixth-generation BMW eDrive technology reduces the carbon footprint of the Neue Klasse across the whole of the vehicle lifecycle.
More range, more efficiency and faster charging means the Neue Klasse will deliver a major technological leap that will take efficient dynamics to new heights. The same applies to the interior design overall, which could not be any more futuristic. The Neue Klasse will certainly impact all model generations.
Analogue operating controls have been reduced to a minimum in this design for the future. Human-car interaction takes place through the BMW Panoramic Vision, the Central Display and multifunction buttons on the steering wheel. The user experience is rounded out by the tried-and-tested voice control of the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant. In this way, the next generation of BMW iDrive offers a modern interpretation of the BMW ethos of putting the driver first.
As with the company’s iDrive controller in the centre console and the BMW Head-Up Display, the brand is once again leading the world with ‘Panoramic Vision’, which will be available for the first time in the Neue Klasse. Information is projected at the ideal height into the driver's line of sight and, for the first time, across the entire width of the windscreen. This innovation will complement the enhanced BMW Head-Up Display in the eventual production models of the Neue Klasse.
In this next generation of BMW iDrive, both the driver and front passenger are able to interact with information displayed on BMW Panoramic Vision, creating a shared user experience. Drivers can move content shown on the Central Display to the BMW Panoramic Vision with a simple gesture. Customisation can be achieved using ‘My Modes’. In My Mode ‘Sport’, specific displays are set against a yellow background to enhance the dynamic driving experience. The iDrive is based on a highly integrated software architecture that consolidates data related to the driving experience and infotainment with data from the vehicle's electronics and electrical system and the BMW cloud. Interaction between human and vehicle can as a result be tailored even more closely to the driving situation and individual needs. Man and machine in perfect harmony? We’ll see.
Bright cord fabrics create a comfortable atmosphere inside the car. The light-coloured instrument panel supports the steering wheel, which is flattened at the top and bottom, as well as the Central Display, a smartphone charging cradle and the classy selector lever space on the centre console.
The front seats are attached to the floor by a single bracket, freeing up additional legroom in the rear compartment, where passengers can enjoy the spaciousness created by having two individual seats. The design of the interior, which is completely free of decorative chrome or leather, helps optimise the carbon footprint of the production process.
Future Drive
The car is to be manufactured at the new plant in Debrecen entirely without fossil fuels and with much wider use of raw and secondary materials produced with reduced CO² across the process. High energy efficiency during the vehicle use phase will be ensured by optimising weight, air and rolling resistance, as well as through intelligent heat management, especially for the electric drive-train, using sixth-generation BMW eDrive technology.
In addition to highly efficient electric motors, major advances in the new BMW eDrive technology include newly-developed round battery cells, with more than twenty percent higher energy density than that of the prismatic cells previously used. The sixth generation of BMW eDrive technology will improve the charging speed for Neue Klasse models by up to thirty percent, in addition to boosting their range by the same amount. As a result of all these measures, overall vehicle efficiency will increase by up to 25%, we learn.
All these technology concepts are coming together in the BMW Vision Neue Klasse, a vehicle that represents the whole range of technological innovations through which the BMW Group will demonstrate its future sustainability. The BMW Vision Neue Klasse signals the start of a new era of individual mobility that is rich in digital experiences, locally emission-free and sustainable in the long term guaranteeing typical BMW driving pleasure with a clear conscience.
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