“The ‘heart of joy’ effectively takes 30 years of experience and combines this in a single control unit,” BMW technical director Frank Weber tells WIRED. “Everything to do with driving performance, chassis control and powertrain: it’s all integrated into one control unit. If you like the idea of the ultimate driving machine, it’s packed with crazy features. The same goes for the infotainment system. To do it right for your customers, you need to own the critical software stacks and the software development process.”
Crazy M performance promise
Weber insists that increasing battery size is incompatible with BMW’s sustainability goals, but promises authentic BMW vibes from its high-performance M-division derivatives. “Neue Klasse is ambitious and will do things that go far beyond what we have now,” he claims. “Future M cars will have almost a megawatt of power (1,340 hp) and the ability to control each individual wheel.”
Photo: BMW
“Some people may miss the sound of a combustion engine, but certainly not how the car behaves. It is unbelievable. Everything needed for M is baked into this new technology platform. As our engineers learned more about the system’s capabilities, their confidence increased. “It’s all about how the car moves. And the control options of electric cars allow you to go completely wild.”
Now back to the Vision It’s a sleek, modern-looking car with a powerful but more nuanced sense of identity.
“We wanted to define BMW’s authentic heritage,” says i-design head Kai Langer, “and the Vision Trying to remove a line from this car, you just can’t. The Vision X is clearly a BMW, even though it has completely different proportions. It is uncomplicated, reduced, daring and alive.”
Being grilled in 3D
Photo: BMW
Interestingly enough, there are shades of the original 02 Series, which debuted in 1966, as well as hints of the beloved 3.0 CSL of the 70s, and even the E30 3 Series of the early 80s. The Vision slightly, but the fact that they are there at all suggests that a rethink has taken place. The vertical double kidney grille will now be reserved for BMW’s X SUV models, a subtle horizontal treatment used on sedans and sports cars.