BMW redesigns how we will interact with its new vehicles

The four physical elements of Panoramic iDrive are the pillar-to-pillar Panoramic Vision screen at the windshield base, a central touchscreen, a multifunction steering wheel and an optional head-up display.Courtesy of manufacturer

In the fall of 2001, in a world still reeling and forever changed by Sept. 11, BMW first put journalists behind the wheel of a car that, in many ways, reinvented the automobile. Now, at the annual Consumer Electronics Show tech-fest in Las Vegas, BMW is promising once again to “revolutionize vehicle operation.”

The 2002 BMW 7 Series was an innovation tour de force, from its provocative flame-surfaced styling, through pioneering powertrain and suspension technologies, to (especially) a driver’s cockpit that reimagined many of the most basic and familiar human-machine interactions.

Front and centre were the screen high on the dashboard and the big multifunction knob on the centre console that controlled it. Billed as technology that adapts to the user, it presented a new way of safely and easily controlling the multitude of new functions and features becoming available in turn-of-the-century automobiles. BMW called it iDrive.

The dash of the 2002 BMW 7 Series with a screen high on the dashboard and the big knob in front of the arm rest that controlled it.Courtesy of manufacturer

(“Safely and easily” might have been a stretch. After abjectly failing to find my preferred radio station during a first-drive home from work in a 2002 745i, I initially loathed the car.)

Over time, touchscreens have, for better or for worse, mostly supplanted the toggle/twist/tap knob that performed the role of a computer mouse in the ‘02 7 Series. But while the human-screen interactions may have evolved, the concept of screen as command centre is an enduring testament to BMW’s foresight.

Now BMW is revealing Panoramic iDrive. The system is based on BMW’s new in-house-developed operating system, OS X (that’s “X” as in Roman-numerals “10”), and will make its production debut in the all-electric Neue Klasse SUV late this year.

Actors Tim Meadows and Ken Jeong show off BMW's new Panoramic iDrive at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 7, 2025.Petrina Gentile/The Globe and Mail

“OSX will be familiar to existing users and intuitive for new users,” said Christian Bauer, head of BMW Group UI/UX Design at an event in South Carolina prior to the CES reveal. BMW further says the system uses an optimal combination of analog and digital controls through the use of switches, buttons, touch and voice control to promote hands-on-the-wheel, eyes-on-the-road driving and to provide the driver with the right information in the right place at the right time.

Functions that will retain physical controls include door mirror adjustment, audio volume, front and rear defog/defrost, wiper/washers, turn signals and drive selection. Climate control, however, will be screen-based – as it already is on most current BMWs.

Unfortunately, BMW’s thunder has already been stolen with respect to the new iDrive’s centrepiece, which the automaker calls Panoramic Vision. The essence of Panoramic Vision – a pillar-to-pillar display screen at the base of the windshield – is already on sale and on the road in a rival production vehicle, the Lincoln Nautilus.

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In BMW’s case, the widescreen permanently displays key data such as speed, driving status, range and battery charge in front of the driver, while you can personalize what else you want to display on the central and right-hand parts of the screen. A key advantage of Panoramic Vision is that its position – well forward, at the base of the windshield – lets drivers view it with minimal visual diversion from the road.

That virtue is taken a step further with the optional 3D head-up display, which is projected onto the windshield in the driver’s line of sight. According to Joern Freyer, department head of user interaction, “navigation and driving assistance are combined for the first time in one 3D view in the HUD (and) information flows easily from the HUD to the Panoramic Vision, such as speed limit or red-light info.

“That’s what we mean by digital craftsmanship,” he adds.

The 3D-look Navi map is the standard backdrop on the central display screen, and when in use, routing instructions also appear on the wide-screen and on the optional head-up display.Courtesy of manufacturer

There is also a central touchscreen display, shaped in what BMW calls a free-cut design that supposedly matches the lines of vision, and located in an ergonomically ideal position close to the steering wheel. The display is navigated by swiping and tapping similarly to existing later-model BMWs, and there’s a permanent quick-access menu bar at the bottom. The standard background is a map display, but owners can personalize that with a picture of their dog or other family member.

The steering wheel itself forms the fourth physical element of Panoramic iDrive. As now, buttons on the left spoke regulate assisted driving functions, while those on the right duplicate commonly used content controls on the screen. A combination of relief-like surfaces, active haptic feedback and selective illumination of the switches, should help drivers learn to use them without looking away from the road.

The Neue Klasse X SUV will be the first production BMW with Panoramic iDrive, followed by its sedan sibling. Prototypes are seen here at the Paris Auto Show last fall.Courtesy of manufacturer

What you can’t see and touch is the operating system. Like OS 9, it is based on an Android software stack, says BMW, with enhanced update and upgrade capabilities, “making it both fit for the future and backward compatible.” And inevitably, artificial intelligence is in the mix, especially as the basis of Intelligent Personal Assistant (IPA).

Beyond responding to voice commands from the driver, IPA can make suggestions based on what it has learned about the driver’s behaviour. For example, if you have a regular routine at the start of your drive to work (max A/C, open news app, check traffic), IPA may suggest making it automatic; or if every day when you leave work you call your wife, it may pop up and ask if you want to do that; or it may suggest activating Sport mode on a stretch of road where the driver has used Sport in the past.

BMW adds that IPA can also take a hint. If you regularly ignore or decline what it proposes, IPA will learn not to do it in future. As well, based on past customer feedback, the car will never speak to you – the proposals are presented as pop-ups on the screen. And it can “identify specific situation classes,” says BMW, so for example if you are alone in the car you will get more proposals than if you had a passenger.

There is still much to learn about the all-electric Neue Klasse models, including the promise of major advances in vehicle dynamics. The proof of the pudding will be in the driving. In the meanwhile, says Bauer, “For us at BMW, the driving experience is more than just settings. It is a truly holistic experience orchestrated through sound, light and an exciting user interface design.”