The BMW i Vision Dee is a future EV sport sedan that may discuss again to you

Everyone at all times has one thing to say about BMW. 

The Bavarian automaker has lengthy had a knack for setting the benchmarks with automobiles like the three Series and X5, however when the autos change with the occasions, BMW’s superfans don’t maintain their tongues. 

“The old cars were better.”

“That new grille is just too much.”

“I’ll never pay for subscription features in a car.” 

Now, at CES 2023, a brand new BMW idea asks: what if the automotive had one thing to say as effectively? And if a automotive may discuss, how would it not work together with its consumer?

This is the BMW i Vision Dee, which stands for “Digital Emotional Experience.” It’s one in all BMW’s most radical — but, in some methods, believable — idea automobiles in years. It’s a minimalist electrical efficiency sedan that leans laborious into digital options like augmented actuality and voice-driven digital assistants. Think the metaverse or Amazon Alexa however in sport sedan type. The idea additionally gives the power to create a driver avatar profile, which may even be projected onto the aspect window. 

More than that, the i Vision Dee’s color-shifting grille is sort of a “face” with its personal expressions on high of the digital voice. This is a BMW that talks again and will even have sizzling takes of its personal. “My father was an E30,” is one factor the automotive mentioned to me at a current tech demonstration, and early social media promos for the idea evoked the ‘80s talking car action show Knight Rider. 

“The headlights and the closed BMW kidney grille also form a common phygital (fusion of physical and digital) icon on a uniform surface, allowing the vehicle to produce different facial expressions,” the automaker said in a news release. “This means the BMW i Vision Dee can talk to people and, at the same time, express moods such as joy, astonishment or approval visually.” 

Like the i Vision Circular from 2021, the i Vision Dee is just a concept car, meant to preview potentially forthcoming designs and technologies that could make their way onto dealer lots eventually. At the same time, the design itself feels like something that could preview a future electric 3 Series or i4 of some sort. 

Visually, the i Vision Dee almost looks like a cross between a Tesla Model 3 and one of BMW’s basic sport sedans, like a 2002 or an E30. The kidney grille sweeps throughout virtually the whole entrance of the idea and a rear gentle bar does the identical throughout the trunk. The white, virtually featureless physique is a stark distinction to the fussy designs of many present BMWs, whereas nonetheless maintaining signature options just like the “Hofmeister kink” of the rear home windows. 

While BMW gained’t immediately affirm that this design is meant for manufacturing, it’s pretty protected to imagine it should affect future automobiles. BMW’s ideas have a approach of turning into actuality—see the i8 supercar and i3 metropolis automotive from the previous decade. BMW even calls this “another milestone on the road” to Neue Klasse, BMW’s upcoming EV-specific car platform. That setup is called for the “New Class” of sport sedans and coupes that outlined BMW’s picture within the Nineteen Sixties and ‘70s. 

While current BMWs tend to be built to offer a mix of internal combustion, hybrid, or EV power — the electric i4 and ICE-powered 4 Series Gran Coupe are essentially the same vehicle, for example — the next round of models is designed from the ground up to be electric for better range and better battery packaging. 

BMW says the i Vision Dee also represents a significant evolution of the E Ink color-shifting technology that debuted at last year’s CES and, in consequence, can rework its exterior into 32 totally different colours — and never only one colour, both. The idea’s physique is split into 240 E Ink segments, every of which might be managed individually, BMW says. It’s the primary time E Ink is used on the whole outdoors of a automotive, and BMW has mentioned the know-how may very well be near commercialization on the client stage. 

Refreshingly, the i Vision Dee is a three-box sedan, not one other blob-like crossover SUV concept. That in and of itself is a daring transfer from BMW and one which’s at odds with present developments; sedan sales have been on the decline for years as the worldwide market has shifted towards crossovers and vans. 

For BMW, it’s proof that the game sedan remains to be essential to the corporate’s picture and backside line, mentioned BMW design boss Domagoj Dukec at a press preview in Germany final yr. 

“We want to show our customers, if the world is changing, we will adapt, but certainly we will always be familiar,” Dukec mentioned. “Everybody who’s working within my team, from different cultures and different generations, they love the brand and they know their history. They don’t want that to go away.” 

Dukec added, “It’s also BMW. When you talk about the core product… it’s the 3 and 5 Series.” 

The i Vision Dee brings excellent news for drivers who hate the explosion of in-car touchscreens these days: there aren’t any screens right here. 

The idea’s bare-bones stark grey inside is much more minimal in design than the surface, with a pared-down steering wheel, seats, and what BMW calls the “Mixed Reality Slider”: a contact panel that controls how a lot data the motive force sees on the superior Heads-Up Display. 

There’s additionally unhealthy information for drivers who hate screens: the entire windshield is now basically a show, mixing the features of a dashboard with an infotainment system and including in augmented actuality options. 

Using the windshield to host shows is nothing new; many fashionable automobiles undertaking automobile speeds, navigation, and different knowledge there (and have in numerous varieties for the reason that Nineteen Eighties). But this idea takes that concept to an entire new stage. 

Images projected onto the display embody social media posts and AR shows along with automobile diagnostics. The different home windows are dimmable, too, if drivers and passengers wish to go full VR mode. Would this create a large distraction? Maybe, however BMW says it’s safer than taking your eyes totally off the highway to take a look at a dashboard-mounted display.

“Projection across the entire width of the windscreen allows information to be displayed on the largest possible surface — which only becomes recognizable as a display once it is activated,” BMW mentioned in a press release. “[The car] visualizes how an advanced Head-Up-Display could also be utilized in the future for the display and operating concept.”

A model of this method, presumably a pared-down one, will make its debut on the Neue Klasse automobiles beginning in 2025.

“An intelligent companion,” not only a automotive

But whereas most of the options previewed on the i Vision Dee actually gained’t be prepared for primetime in 2023, they really feel like a plausible strategy to the place the more and more digitally targeted automotive trade goes. 

“With the BMW i Vision Dee, we are showcasing what is possible when hardware and software merge. In this way, we are able to exploit the full potential of digitalization to transform the car into an intelligent companion,” mentioned Oliver Zipse, BMW’s board chairman, in a press release. 

That’s chilly consolation to the diehards who need BMW to return to the best way issues was once — nonetheless they select to understand that. It additionally gained’t do for critics of the applied sciences discovered within the i Vision Dee. After all, Amazon Alexa did little more than set billions of dollars on fire in 2022, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s choice to pivot to the metaverse has been met with outright scorn. The query stays whether or not drivers even need among the options on the i Vision Dee, particularly the sweeping shows throughout the windshield or the speaking digital assistant. 

Even because it struggles with issues like getting drivers to accept subscription features in cars, BMW says sure. The future isn’t going to be high-revving inline-six engines and guide transmissions, so BMW has to discover a strategy to persuade the diehard devoted that “performance” might be outlined by issues like software program pace, charging time, and electrical vary. The automobiles it produces within the rapid subsequent few years in all probability gained’t be as wildly bold because the i Vision Dee, but it surely does present that BMW is already considering in that course.