For several years now BMW has been teasing us with features and ideas that area all leading up to one thing – the launch of their Neue Klasse range of vehicles. At CES in Las Vegas the company has once again lead the motoring announcements with the reveal of their innovative new Panoramic iDrive system which is powered by an all-new software system called “Operating System X”.
Neue Klasse is not a single car, it’s a generation of vehicles to come from BMW – in all shapes and forms, and in various different forms of power, from Electric to Hybrid to conventional Internal Combustion.
That will all kick off later this year with the launch of the new iX3 – likely to be the first production vehicle built on this new architecture.
While the design signature of a Neue Klasse vehicle will make it stand out from the rest of the BMW fleet, you will certainly not be mistaken when you get inside as the new series of vehicles will all have the new Panoramic iDrive system as standard.
There are three core elements to the Panoramic iDrive, a new enhanced version of the traditional “Heads Up Display” right in the drivers eyeline will now be a 3D Head-Up display. Then there’s the all new Center Infotainment display and the third component is the windscreen width projection of data and info right across the bottom of the windscreen.
New BMW cars won’t have an instrument cluster – that’s a huge change and a revelation. However rather than forgoing that concept entirely, BMW believes the projected head-up display, combined with the panoramic lower windscreen information is more than enough for any driver.
That panoramic display is quite remarkable, projecting or reflecting the image onto the bottom of the windscreen, in an area that already exists on almost all cars, dead space at the lower few centimeters of the windscreen. The bit you can’t see through, it’s black behind it as the front of the car meets the “cockpit” area.
This display will always show your core driving data, like speed as it should be in front of the driver. Information toward the centre might be driving related like in sports mode the g-force meter, or in normal mode perhaps music display or navigation instructions.
Over near the passenger you might display the temperature or time to destination, it’s all customisable, though drive related information won’t be put over near the passenger. The core “dashboard” cluster will be right in front of the driver.
It’s a brilliant use of space and is configured on the new centre console screen.
This screen is angled toward the steering wheel to bring it closer to the driver for better ergonomics and safe access while driving.
That whole screen’s user interface has been redesigned to be more personal, and perhaps more like the smartphone interfaces we are all now so used to.
But at it’s core, it’s still the iDrive system BMW has been using and developing for so long. BMW though is keeping up with the times, incorporating a large language model AI to ensure a natural language interaction with the BMW “Intelligent Personal Assistant”.
It was all developed in-house at BMW based on an Android Open Source Project software stack and creates what BMW calls a “Software defined vehicle” which “paves the way for a clear and pared back cockpit design”.
Frank Weber, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, responsible for Development describes these innovations as “High tech meets highly intuitive operation – a quarter of a century of pioneering achievements and technological leadership has been channelled into the control/operation concept of the new BMW Panoramic iDrive.
Underpinning it all is the new BMW Operating System X, which enables us to make one of the best and most complete infotainment systems in the world more powerful than ever and to once again set the industry standard for multimodal interaction. Starting with the first production model of the Neue Klasse at the end of this year, the new BMW Panoramic iDrive will form an integral part of all future BMW vehicles.”
Contemplating how important the software of a car is today, Adrian van Hooydonk, Senior Vice President BMW Group Design says “Technology and customer preferences are currently changing faster than ever. Designing digital experiences and sound plays an increasingly important role,”
“The new BMW Operating System X will not only make our cars more intelligent and easier to use, but it will also allow for much more personalization, making each new BMW your very own.”
I travelled to BMW’s US Factory in Spartenberg late last year as a guest of BMW Australia and got to see these new systems and displays at work, and even experienced them in a VR format to get a sense of how they would operate for users.
This use of VR is a strong part of developments like this for BMW, they also use it in the training of Factory assembly staff. Technology isn’t just forming a huge part of the car of the future, it’s deeply intwined into the development and testing of new technology in cars.
For now though, it’s all eyes now on the formal reveal of an actual production car on the Neue Klasse platform, something we will see by the end of 2025.
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Trev is a Technology Commentator, Dad, Speaker and Rev Head.
He produces and hosts two popular podcasts, EFTM and Two Blokes Talking Tech. He also appears on over 50 radio stations across Australia weekly, and is the resident Tech Expert on Channel 9’s Today Show each day and appears regularly on A Current Affair.
Father of three, he is often found down in his Man Cave.
