BMW aims to Dee-light in new design
BMW’s i Vision Dee might appear to be about the tech but it also introduces a new design language, as Mark Smyth found out at CES
The BMW i Vision Dee concept is the clearest look yet into BMW’s new generation of electric vehicles, which it calls its Neue Klasse. The company says its new models, coming in 2025, will focus on circularity, electrification and digitalisation and to get a better understanding of how all this translates in the new concept, BMW’s design director, Adrian van Hooydonk, spoke with Car Design News.
The initial ideas for the concept began three years ago, he explained, but work only really got underway a year ago, with the aim to have something that would put on a real show in Las Vegas. The wow factor is immediately taken care of with the colour-changing E-Ink exterior, the mixed reality displays and the personal assistant, but are there echoes of the the original BMW 3 Series in the design? Is the new form language going retro?
“I wouldn’t say it’s a retro design,” said Van Hooydonk, although he does admit there are hints of the E21 from the 1970s. “In that sense, maybe there is a reference or connection, but we wouldn’t go further than that, we wouldn’t want to go retro, not at this point in our design history.”
Not everyone is going to spot any subtle links to previous models and BMW wants to be seen as forward thinking anyway, so what does he identify as the main traits that define the concept as a BMW?
“I would say first in proportion and silhouettes, the two and a half box silhouette is something that people would attribute to us. A sporty compact sedan, I think that’s what BMW is known for,” he said. There’s also the sense of forward movement in a BMW’s stance, even when stationary, and Van Hooydonk has worked to include that in the concept.
“I do think that it exudes a certain power or dynamic, even when standing still and those are all connotations that we’ve always used in our design language,” he said. “Maybe we’ve used more lines in the past than we do now and maybe we will add a line or two, but just as it stands there now from a proportion perspective, I think it’s a BMW.”
We felt that when cars become cleaner in the sense of emissions, then a cleaner form language would also be good
So there might be a few additional lines, but even so, beyond the graphics and laser projectors, the overall design is very clean, more so than many recent BMW models. It’s the next stage after the i Vision Circular shown in 2021, but Van Hooydonk says that Dee is more focused on the digital aspects, leaving room for one more major concept to come.
“We’ve been going to cleaner shapes for the past ten years,” he said. “When we started BMW i, we immediately felt it should lead to a new and cleaner form language, which you can see with the i3 and the i8. We also knew back then that that form language should be transferred into our other cars and if you look at the i7, it is a super clean design, there’s only one line on it with very clean surfacing. So we’ve been on that track for a while, because we felt that when cars become cleaner in the sense of emissions then a cleaner form language would also be good. Also, if you are able to do a clean form language, the design probably holds up longer, that’s always a consideration as well.”
He is cautious not to make things too clean, or in his words, “too sober” in case that isn’t what customers want. Instead he and his team want to retain an emotional connection in both the way the cars drive and how the cars look and make people feel.
I Vision Dee might showcase a new form language, but it’s the digitalisation aspect that aims to deliver the biggest emotional connection, hence the name Dee, or ’Digital Emotional Experience”. BMW sees it as the latest stage in a journey that began when it introduced Connected Drive in 2008.
Everything we have at our disposal now is stuff that we only dreamt of as kids
“If you look inside, the interior is extremely reduced but there is a steering wheel and it is driver focused,” he said. “We’re not just putting tons of displays in the car, we thought long and hard about how we’re going to incorporate the digital aspects in the driving environment, because BMW is about driving and that’s where we began our thought process.”
The idea is to replicate the world of the smartphone, where a user buys a new phone and then uses apps and other tech to make it their own. It’s a theme that is being adopted by many of the infotainment suppliers too. Van Hooydonk sees this as being part of the new perception of luxury, where some features are reduced such as screens and even trim components, while those that remain have elements that can be personalised through so-called “shy-tech”, apps, changing colours or display projection.
That includes the new head-up display, which can cover a narrow band the width of the windscreen or incorporate the entire windscreen and the windows using laser projectors. How much of it will appear in the production model is not yet known, but Van Hooydonk insists it will not take away from BMW’s mantra of eyes on the road, hands on the wheel.
The i Vision Dee is also one of the most collaborative concepts yet from BMW. He describes it as being a much tighter and faster relationship with regular input from design, engineering and software teams. He points out that a few years ago each division would create its own element and bring them together to see if they worked, but today an interior designer might sketch a trim piece, a material designer might come up with an alternative solution and a digital designer might say they have an even better solution. It’s all happening in a more real time, collaborative environment allowing for faster development times.
“It is quite a different process now,” Van Hooydonk said. “It’s an intense collaboration and there has to be some kind of traffic control, who gets to do what in each particular space, but the possibilities are vast and with the digital aspects, you can keep changing, you can offer the customer some room to play and personalise.”
New technology brings with it new challenges though and he and his team have to contend with everything from data rules relating to digitalisation to the energy efficiency and sustainability of materials and components. Add to this the need for a new model to be future-proof against changes in rules in multiple markets around the world and the challenges are ongoing, but Van Hooydonk still finds it all very exciting.
“It’s a very enjoyable time to be a designer, because everything we have at our disposal now is stuff that we only dreamt of as kids and you could only see it in movies,” he said. “Now we’re pretty close to being able to realise it. It’s a very cool and exciting time.”