What's the news?
BMW has brought along what it calls the 'i Inside Future Sculpture' to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The mega-geek event is fast becoming a key arena for car makers to show off their digital tech, and BMW's big idea for this year is holograms.
Yup, just as in Star Wars, BMW reckons that holographic instruments and switches are the way forward for car cabins. The i Inside sculpture, which looks rather like the sort of wooden styling buck that car designers use to help lay out interiors, uses a new system called 'Air Touch.' According to BMW this means that it "can be operated just like a touchscreen - except that there is no actual contact involved. Now this system has been taken a stage further with BMW HoloActive Touch. BMW HoloActive Touch fuses the advantages of the BMW Head-Up Display, BMW gesture control and intuitive touchscreen functionality with revolutionary technology to create a completely new kind of user interface for the vehicle interior of the future. This innovative interface between the driver and vehicle consists of a free-floating virtual display which is projected in the area above the centre console. The system is operated directly by finger movements, while an ultrasound source provides tactile confirmation of the driver's commands. That said, in neither case is there ever any actual contact between the driver and the user interface."
BMW is also demonstrating what it calls the BMW Connected Window, essentially an extension of BMW's existing Connected in-car services which can also be brought into the home. It includes a collaboration with Amazon's Prime Now delivery service that allows drivers to order products, via voice control, to be delivered to them at their destination. Other, slightly more ephemeral, services include a predictive travel assistant that works out when a car can take autonomous control and leave the driver free to view an Amazon Prime video, and one that automatically dims the cabin lights and raises the sunblinds when a video is activated.
Other Connected Window systems work with Microsoft's voice control assistant 'Cortana' which can bridge the gap between car and home, "planning the user's personal mobility agenda and selecting infotainment functions are possible not just in the vehicle and on a smartphone but also on a "big screen" in the user's own home."
BMW's also bringing high tech to its sales technique, working with Accenture and imaging experts Tango to create a 3D virtual reality sales tool for the i3 and i8 models to specific dealerships. By using the goggle-based interface, potential buyers can explore the car in full photo-real 3D, have a look around the interior and fiddle with the specification. "Our vehicles are emotional products and to get that emotional feeling, you really need to experience them," commented Andrea Castronovo, BMW Group Vice President, Sales Strategy and Future Retail. "In situations where the desired product isn't available on the spot, this visualisation is the next best thing.
"In our initial tests, we saw people ducking down when they were getting into the car, as if there really were a roof there for them to bang their heads on. It's that level of detail which means this technology offers the customers real added value."
Finally, Munich has also confirmed that it's pushing forward with work on autonomous, self-driving cars. A partially self-driving 5 Series will be on show at the CES, while BMW is also working with Intel and camera speciality MobileEye to put a fleet of 40 robotic cars on roads around the world before the end of this year. "Making autonomous driving a reality for our customers is the shared ambition behind our cooperation with Intel and Mobileye. This partnership has all of the skills and talent necessary to overcome the enormous technological challenges ahead and commercialize self-driving vehicles. Therefore, we are already thinking in terms of scalability and welcome other companies - manufacturers, suppliers or technology companies - to participate and contribute to our autonomous platform. This year our fleet of vehicles will already test this joint technology globally under real traffic conditions. This is a significant step towards the introduction of the BMW iNEXT in 2021, which will be the BMW Group's first fully autonomous vehicle," stated Klaus Fröhlich, Member of the Board of Management of BMW for Development.