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BMW iNext Project On Track For 2021 Release, Gets New Development Center

Among the many ways in which BMW celebrated a century of existence was the launch of a very peculiar concept, otherwise known as the Vision Next 100.
BMW Vision Next 100 Concept 1 photo
Photo: BMW AG
Apart from looking like it came straight out of the Minority Report movie set, the Vision Next 100 is also a preview of things to come at BMW. Things like a fully autonomous sports car, which has received the green light to enter production in 2021 within the “i” sub-brand.

Set to be called iNext in production form, the all-electric and self-driving four-seater has already started development, and will be joined in the future by other similar models.

For this purpose, the Bavarians have recently inaugurated a new campus for R&D in Unterschleissheim, which is right near Munich for those unable to type that into their navigation system.

The new R&D center is not yet completed, but it will have room for more than 2,000 employees when it does, each of them working toward implementing fully autonomous driving systems, software development, and even road testing.

The road to fully-automated driving is an opportunity for Germany's automobile manufacturing base. The decision to develop and road-test these vehicles in the Munich area illustrates how the BMW Group and the whole region can benefit from this shift in the automotive industry,” said Klaus Frohlich, member of the Board of Management, responsible for Development at the BMW Group.

Although the iNext is scheduled to be launched in 2021, pre-production prototypes of self-driving BMWs will start testing on public roads as early as next year. This means that part of that technology will be available on “lesser” BMWs in about a couple of years.

That said, don't expect to see a Bimmer drifting a roundabout with the driver sitting in the passenger seat anytime soon, despite the technology already allowing them to do it now.

The iNext should preserve some of the Vision Next 100's lines, along with the promises that the concept made. It's not yet certain how most BMW die-hard fans will react to an autonomous car from their favorite company, but as long as the model also offers a manual mode, it shouldn't be such a predicament.
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About the author: Alex Oagana
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Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project.
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