BMW, you may have noticed, is starting to generate quite a head of steam when it comes to its Neue Klasse EVs. It started, predictably enough, with the design concepts long ago, but shifted up a gear when M GmbH started talking in detail (via YouTube) about what the forthcoming electric M3 is going to be like. Now, building on many of the aspects it discussed in those videos, most notably the ‘Heart of Joy’ centralised control unit, BMW has publicly unveiled what it is calling its new high-performance test vehicle - or the Vision Driving Experience as it is catchily known.
Much about the monster prototype is already familiar: the firm has previously acknowledged that it has been developing a four-motor setup for years, and fully integrating the drivetrain, brakes, charging, recuperation and steering sub-functions has been a key component of making its colossal output not just manageable, but appropriately enjoyable. It is considered so crucial to the Neue Klasse generally that Oliver Zipse, BMW’s chairman, took to the IAA show stage in 2023 holding its black box aloft in triumph. So while the Vision car is definitely a ‘rolling test rig’ not meant for series production, the Heart of Joy inside it absolutely is - and therefore worth shouting about. Again.
“The Heart of Joy enables us to take driving pleasure not just to the next level, but another one beyond that,” says Frank Weber, BMW’s development boss. “In addition, we are further increasing efficiency, and therefore boosting range, as in future the driver will brake almost exclusively using energy regeneration. This is Efficient Dynamics squared.”
In order that we all get the message (and possibly to sex it up a bit), the Vision Driving Experience is almost absurdly trick. Not only does it develop up to 13,269 lb ft of torque (!) and get colour-coded LEDs, it is also said to feature five very noisy ‘impellers’ - or electric fans as we’d know them - underneath to sucker the carbon chassis to the ground. Needless to say, BMW isn’t actually planning to generate 1,000kg of drag-free downforce or install maritime-grade torque in any resulting Neue Klasse model, instead it claims that by making the test rig cope with extremes of linear and lateral performance, ‘it will be able to handle the demands of everyday driving with ease’.
Make of that what you will, but certainly BMW is deadly serious about a) the level of speed and precision it has achieved in unifying all dynamic functions, and b) the cutting-edge nature of the BMW Dynamic Performance Control software that runs the integrated system - not least because it has done all the coding in-house and reckons that it encapsulates more than a century of experience. The Heart of Joy is one of four ‘new super-brains’ that will power the Neue Klasse (each effectively a single computer that combines myriad elements that previously ran separately); the others will run everything else, including automated driving.
BMW claims a world-first in combining drivetrain and dynamic functions (it has several patent applications pending) but the wider point is that by centrally marshalling the actuators responsible for acceleration and braking, vehicle stabilisation, dynamic steering functions and charging management, it can respond with ‘minimal delay’ - and by reducing latencies to the ‘millisecond range’ it can fully exploit the potential of electric drive systems in a way that wouldn’t be possible with traditional electric architectures or individual control algorithms.
As well as delivering a more harmonious driving experience, BMW reckons it will also do a much better job of using the available energy more sparingly. It is no secret that modern EVs already achieve much of their braking via recuperation, but in the Neue Klasse the firm says that 98 per cent of drivers will not need to call upon the conventional brakes when stopping. Only under very heavy braking will the discs be required, an innovation that contributes to the 25 per cent increase in efficiency achieved across the board by the new consolidated system.
Also, it explains the colour coding. The Vision Driving Experience car lights up its wheels in real-time based on what it’s doing: green is for acceleration, blue is energy recuperation and orange shows when the friction brakes are being used. Possibly not the most exciting or serious aspect of an EV purpose-built to go around corners (and into and out of them) at genuinely unnerving speeds, but who could blame BMW for going mad with this particular Christmas tree? Joy, after all, is what it’s apparently all about.
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