From weird active body panels to collapsible steering yokes to an onboard driving coach, this thing has it all
Today — March 7, 2016 — marks 100 years of BMW. To celebrate, the automaker is looking way, way forward with a wild concept car it’s calling the Vision Next 100.
If the progress of the last century tells us anything, it’s that long-term prognostication is next to useless; could the aircraft engine-designers of Bayerische Motoren Werke circa 1916 have conceived of the streamlined 1936 328, let alone the brand-new M2? If road cars look anything like this in 30 years, we’d frankly be surprised.
So maybe don’t take the Next 100 as an predictor of future-car aesthetics. Instead, consider it a visualization of technologies and trends that seem destined to shake things up in the coming decades. With that in mind, here’s what the Next 100 says about what’s to come — good, bad and neutral.
The more the Companion learns about its owner and their mobility habits, the smarter it becomes.
It still looks like a BMW
It shouldn’t really come as a surprise, but the Next 100 is still immediately recognizable as a BMW (thanks in part to that big double-kidney grille up front). If we had to compare it to an existing car, we’d say it was a sedan-ized take on the i8 but with crazy clamshell doors instead of crazy flying buttresses.
Size-wise, it sits between the 4-Series and 6-Series. However, interior volume is more comparable to that of a 7-Series.
You’ll still be able to drive it…when you want to
BMW isn’t alone in predicting that more people may choose not to own a car in the coming decades — this is, after all, the root of automakers’ cringe-inducing efforts to rebrand themselves as “personal mobility companies” — but it isn’t giving in to the GooglePods just yet.
Despite its own investment in developing autonomous drive features, BMW claims that enthusiasts will still enjoy controlling their own direction and destiny far into the future — which is why the the Next 100 concept incorporates so-called Boost and Ease modes.
Ease is a full autonomous mode; enough said. Boost summons the steering wheel, which is really more of a collapsible steering yoke at this point, from its resting place in the dash and lets you use it; the result is (per BMW) a car that is “more dynamic” than ever. Naturally. (Will someone please tell BMW to stop saying “dynamic”?-ED)
Is all this talk of driving excitement just a bone thrown to E30-worshippers? Perhaps, but we’ll note that other forward-looking concepts, like Mercedes-Benz’s lozenge-shaped F 015, are comfortable doing away with the steering wheel altogether.
The more the Companion learns about its owner and their mobility habits, the smarter it becomes.
It’s a Transformer!
BMW has toyed with cars that morph before: Recall Chris Bangle’s entrancing, disturbing fabric-bodied GINA concept from 2001. The Next 100 takes a different approach, using roughly 800 individual moving triangular bits to shape and reshape interior and exterior panels.
This concept-within-a-concept is called Alive Geometry, and BMW is less than clear about how it works. It did suggest that it could use self-transforming structures manufactured by a process called 4-D printing to make it work. (Yes, that’s a real thing, but only barely.)
One idea behind Alive Geometry is that we’ll eventually move beyond conventional digital displays; instead, windshields will become giant heads-up screens and the very surfaces of the car will convey useful information through a sort of mechanical body language.
Outside, the hypothetical system brings active aero to rear panels and permit fully skirted, low-drag wheels to turn unobstructed.
This isn’t exactly ready for production — expect to see autonomous driving before you see Alive Geometry. “Although at present it remains difficult to imagine how hundreds of tiny triangles could be coordinated to make Alive Geometry work, in the years ahead,” the automaker says, “it will be possible.” We love the optimism, at least.
The more the Companion learns about its owner and their mobility habits, the smarter it becomes.
Your car will get to know you
Think of the Next 100’s Companion as the automotive version of Apple’s Siri: A virtual entity serving as the contact point between you and the car’s onboard systems, and something to yell at when everything goes wrong.
While BMW stops short of promising artificial intelligence, the automaker says Companion will learn about you as you drive, noting your on-road style, daily habits and routine. It might even strive to make you a better driver: Using the heads-up windshield delay, it could, for example, help spirited drivers improve their skills by sketching out the perfect line through a corner.
The Companion’s physical representation is a gem-shaped thing plonked on the dash. Through this object, the Companion communicates with vehicle occupants, other drivers and pedestrians. A green signal light might let a pedestrian know it’s safe to cross the street, for example. Presumably, a red signal light indicates the Companion has entered HAL 9000 mode.
The powertrain is a mystery
In introducing the Next 100, BMW spent a lot of time on far-out concept tech, but no time hashing out what, exactly, supplies the motive power. This was not accidental. When pressed, the automaker only said that it would be both “emissions-free” and “dynamic.”
So, we’ve got that to look forward to in 2116.
Previous reports have suggested that BMW will eliminate pure-internal combustion drivetrains in as little as 10 years; full-electric drive seems a likely candidate for this concept which, we’ll note, will never be built anyway.
In any event, BMW will shed some light on future powertrains at a strategy conference next week — which will hopefully give us something a little more concrete to mull over. Stay tuned.
(In the coming months, BMW will unveil another three Next 100 vehicles — one each for Mini, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad, so be on the lookout for those too.)
Graham Kozak
– Graham Kozak drove a 1951 Packard 200 sedan in high school because he wanted something that would be easy to find in a parking lot. He thinks all the things they’re doing with fuel injection and seatbelts these days are pretty nifty too. Read more »
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The Next 100 years: What BMW’s crazy new concept says about the coming century of driving
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