BMW’s I Vision Dee Concept Car Changes Colors in Seconds

BMW thinks there may be “huge potential” for such display projection expertise, far past the compact head-up shows drivers have change into used to over the previous 20 years.

It can be straightforward to imagine stage 5 of the Dee system is meant for a totally autonomous automobile, the place passengers can change off from the surface world and watch a film or different streamed content material. However, as a sign of the restraint of BMW’s method with this idea, the i Vision Dee options no autonomous driving expertise in any respect.

Adrian van Hooydonk, BMW Group design director, says: “Augmented reality is something that’s not just interesting, but actually helpful for driver orientation. You can focus on the road ahead of you, and the information you need will be seemingly projected onto the road. What we’re showing in this Vision car is a new technology that allows you to use the entire width of the windscreen.”

Shared Vision

Keen to determine that this isn’t vaporware, Van Hooydonk says BMW is significantly trying into constructing the kind of HUD show proven in the i Vision Dee idea. “We see a lot of benefits because, again, your eyes are focusing on the road,” he says, including how the expertise may exchange typical dashboard shows and see instrument clusters fully faraway from behind the steering wheel.

BMW says a manufacturing model of its new HUD expertise will probably be used in vehicles due from 2025 onward. It refers to those as-yet unannounced electrical autos as its Neue Klasse.

Although spectacular in its idea kind, BMW’s tackle the way forward for automotive HUDs isn’t distinctive. Swiss expertise agency WayRay can also be engaged on a complicated augmented-reality interface for windshields. The firm claims no different current HUD can match its 3D imagery, which reveals automobile velocity and vary, mapping, and trajectory alongside the street forward. 

Other auto OEMs are additionally working in this house, with Mercedes including navigation prompts to a reside videofeed from a forward-facing digital camera, whereas each Audi and Ford are investigating methods to challenge driver info onto the street utilizing LED headlamps. Revealed in August 2022, Ford’s system is geared towards nighttime driving, the place prompts warning of velocity limits, upcoming junctions, and icy climate are beamed onto the street.

A “Friendly” Digital Companion

Advanced in-car assistants are additionally a scorching subject. While some producers would quite drivers use Siri or Google Assistant through a related smartphone, others are additionally going their very own means. Nio, a Chinese electrical automotive firm with plans for US and European growth, has Nomi, a digital assistant whose digital face is housed inside a devoted dashboard show that turns to the motive force when spoken to.

BMW’s Dee assistant doesn’t have a face, no less than not in the US and Europe, however BMW says facial expressions may seem in the Chinese market, the place demand for such expertise is larger.

“We want to make a bigger statement that is beyond speech recognition,” van Hooydonk says. “We want to say that your entire vehicle will become a companion.” To that finish, the idea proven off in Las Vegas this week additionally makes use of e-ink shows in its headlamps to convey feelings, probably to pedestrians and different motorists, or when approached by its proprietor. BMW claims sure moods like pleasure, astonishment, and approval could be expressed visually.

This so-called welcome situation may embody the automotive projecting an avatar of the motive force onto the facet window when it detects their presence, BMW says. It’s actually a novel means of recognizing your automotive amongst others in a busy parking zone, and along with the headlamp facial expressions, you’ll after all be reminded of Lightning McQueen from Cars.

Reductive Design

The Dee idea itself is, to our eyes no less than, splendidly retro. It’s a three-box design that would have sat awkwardly up in opposition to the supposedly bleeding-edge expertise showcased in and out, but it really works, and is a design we hope BMW can flip into actuality as a part of its Neue Klasse vehicles. From an organization criticized for its ungainly iX and difficult i7, the compact idea is a breath of recent air.

Van Hooydonk says it’s a form that got here from boiling down years of BMW design language into “the quintessential BMW elements.” “For this car we took it to another level and reduced the amount of elements drastically, because we wanted the digital aspects to take center stage,” van Hooydonk says.