BMW has revealed a new ‘Vision Neue Klasse’ concept car - and you could well be looking at the 3 Series of the future.
All roads right now lead to electric vehicles, and that fact hasn’t been lost on BMW.
With a brave new world of battery-powered propulsion comes the need for a whole new design language. And this is what BMW has come up with.
The first thing that stands out is the front grille.
BMW has been criticised by some in recent years for making its front kidney grilles progressively bigger and more aggressive. Just look at the new BMW XM Label Red.
But the ‘shark nose’ front end on this Vision Neue Klasse is sleeker, more pared down, and it’s a look that should go down well with BMW purists.
The cabin is also suitably minimalist, coming with an ‘iDrive’ digital interface that ‘merges real and virtual worlds’.
Frank Weber, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Development, said: “With the Neue Klasse, we have embarked on the biggest investment in the company’s history. We are not just writing the next chapter of BMW; we’re writing a whole new book. That’s why the Neue Klasse will certainly impact all model generations.”
Meanwhile BMW’s famed chief of design, Adrian van Hooydonk, adds: “The design of the Neue Klasse is typically BMW and so progressive it looks like we skipped a model generation.”
BMW is promising ‘30 percent more range, 30 percent faster charging, 25 percent more efficiency’ with its upcoming EVs compared with its current electric vehicles. That’s down to newly-developed round battery cells that have a higher energy density.
The Vision Neue Klasse also gets BMW’s mega-anticipated ‘E Ink’ paint job, which acts like a digital veneer that allows you to change the car’s colour at the touch of a button.
The ‘Panoramic Vision’ system is basically a head-up display on steroids and which projects information ‘at the ideal height into the driver's line of sight and, for the first time, across the entire width of the windscreen’.
There’s a hint of the Seventies in the eye-catching corduroy upholstery in the cabin, but there’s nothing retro about the flat-top steering wheel, glassy gear selector or the bright, light and spacious interior in general.
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