BMW is completely revamping its in-car consumer interface, beginning with the Neue Klasse sedan later this 12 months and in the end spreading to all fashions, the corporate introduced at CES 2025. A few of it appears to be like and feels acquainted, however the large change is a widget-based system that lets customers customise the structure — together with on the automotive’s windshield.
There isn’t an precise show on the windshield, although. As an alternative, there are screens embedded within the dashboard that replicate up onto a barely handled portion of the glass. It’s a supercharged model of an concept that we’ve seen in different automobiles, offered with distinct BMW flare.
“We felt after we checked out all of the digital prospects, that persons are solely utilizing a fraction of what a automobile can theoretically do inside,” BMW CTO Frank Weber informed TechCrunch in an interview on the present.
Weber stated BMW needed to increase what drivers might do with an in-car UI, however that the design crew additionally didn’t wish to overwhelm drivers with screens like so most of the firm’s friends. That’s why they turned to the windshield concept, which he stated is a expertise that’s been kicking round internally at BMW for a couple of decade.
(The excellence between “one other display screen” and “info mirrored on the windshield” could look like splitting hairs to most individuals. However Weber stated that placing that a part of the UI at a little bit of a take away — up above the dashboard, within the line of sight to the highway forward — retains with the corporate’s longstanding concentrate on creating the “final driving expertise.”)
BMW has technically proven Panoramic iDrive to media earlier than, notably at an occasion in April. However this time round, BMW revealed the ultimate production-intent model, Head of BMW Group Design Adrian Van Hooydonk informed TechCrunch.
BMW didn’t cast off all shows. There’s nonetheless a central contact display screen show on the dashboard the place drivers and passengers will discover local weather and different frequent settings, a 3D map, and a carousel of customizable widgets. And there’s an non-obligatory head-up show in entrance of the driving force that floats above the panoramic UI.
The shift to this new UI — formally referred to as Panoramic iDrive — additionally means the dying of BMW’s love-it-or-hate-it, knob-based iDrive system. Now greater than 20 years outdated, Weber claimed most drivers hardly use the iDrive knob outdoors of scrolling by way of issues like lengthy contact lists or zooming out and in of maps. In China, he stated, drivers don’t use it in any respect.
The removing of the iDrive knob, plus the concentrate on the central show and windshield, means BMW drivers will management the Panoramic iDrive UI by way of a mixture of haptic steering wheel buttons and voice management. The latter will contain a brand new BMW digital assistant that’s powered by a white label LLM.
“We wish to have extra info proper in entrance of you, the place you might be driving, to help the thought of of palms on the wheel, eyes on the highway,” Weber stated. “And the end result was, sure, there will likely be fewer bodily buttons.”
The brand new UI will embody third-party app help, and in contrast to some rivals, BMW shouldn’t be transferring away from Apple CarPlay help.
“We management every thing as a result of what we wish to have is an interface that’s deeply related to the features of the automotive,” Van Hooydonk stated. “In fact, we may even provide issues like Apple Automobile Play and so forth, and in China and different methods, and they are going to be built-in so far as doable. However you can’t fully management all of the automotive features. We wish to maintain that to ourselves in addition to the the shopper information.”
Take a look at extra CES 2025 protection, together with…
