Wild Electric Futuremobile

BMW Wants You to Drive Its Wild Electric Futuremobile

The iNext concept previews an SUV that'll arrive in 2021. BMW's R&D chief told us it'll have "stunning driving dynamics."

By Chris Perkins
BMW

At the lavish reveal of the BMW Vision iNext concept—a preview of an all-electric SUV set to arrive in 2021—there was a lot of talk of autonomy, connectivity and other ultra-futuristic tech.


The interior of the iNext, with its jacquard fabrics and lavish wood trim, was designed to evoke a lounge at a modern boutique hotel. A press on the steering wheel roundel sees the wheel and pedals retract as the car takes over the responsibility of driving. The headrests of the front buckets can be folded down to better facilitate conversation with those in the back, who sit on a bench made from a special fabric that allowed for gesture controls.

A colleague at Car and Driver summed it up well: "Amid a clutter of autonomous concepts promising an electrified, accident-free ride with voice assistants and screens as our companions, BMW's latest Vision concept performs as expected."


BMW

But perhaps unusually for the reveal of such a concept car, someone was talking about human-driving here—self-professed "car guy" Klaus Frölich, head of R&D for BMW. I asked him how he'd make the production car the iNext previews drive like a real BMW.

"That's very easy, honestly," he said. "Longitudinal acceleration is obviously no problem for electric cars, but if you corner, they fail. That's the reason why we're bringing this car out in 2021, because I am not prepared to put 800 to 900 kg [1760-2000 lbs] of battery into a car. It's nonsense."

By the time this car arrives in 2021, Frölich says BMW will have a new battery cell with a high energy density, which should keep the weight of the batteries in check. In addition to the batteries, BMW will handle development of the electric motors and their control systems for the iNext.

"We can make a very spontaneous, BMW-like powertrain," Frölich said. "Electric powertrains give you much more possibilities to design a character of the powertrain. Because they are so instantaneous—you can do it in milliseconds."


BMW

The production iNext will have an electric motor at each axle for all-wheel drive, which should allow Frölich to define the dynamics of the car with absolute precision. He brought up the new i3s, which has a traction control system that can react 100 times faster than the systems in internal-combustion BMW cars. The iNext will benefit from similar technology.

"There will be stunning driving dynamics," Frölich said.

For all the talk about autonomy and the future, Frölich seems not to have forgotten BMW's longtime slogan—The Ultimate Driving Machine. He talked about the many laps he's put in at the Nürburgring, making sure the steering on the new Z4, 8-Series, and soon-to-be-revealed 2019 3-Series feels right.

We'll see if he can deliver on his promise in 2021.


BMW

From: Road & Track