There’s a new game in Vegas this week and it has nothing to do with the casinos. Instead, the hype comes from BMW, which used the CES to showcase a host of autonomous driving tech. For me, the jackpot here is the part where they show autonomous drifting and it’s one I would never want to cash out.
BMW has taken a 6 Series Gran Coupe and an M235i round the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Among a list of moves aimed at introducing completely autonomous driving vehicles by 2020, the two coupes pulled some drifts... all by themselves.
That’s extremely cute, but it’s wrong. BMWs were supposed to make YOU jump for joy behind the wheel... after all they do call themselves the Ultimate Driving Machines.
Most of their work here was done to spread safety technology further and even make it more affordable and I applaud that. However, showing cars that can drift while the driver keeps his hands at home, even if this is just for the sake of drawing attention, gives me nightmares about the future.
BMW never said autonomous drifting would be part of the production package coming out by the end of the decade, but the sheer demonstration makes it wrong.
Drifts have no other purpose than personal enjoyment. Relying fully on machines to do this is like replacing a Circue du Soleil act with some dancing robots shown at the 2014 CES.
We’ve had launch control for years and that’s brilliant. But why use progress for drifting or for finding the perfect racing line around a track? Yes, the pair of BMWs can do that too.
And there’s another thing. People spend years learning to battle it out on the track, whether it’s lap times or tire smoke they’re after. Then they enjoy the fruits of their passion. Well, imagine you’ve become a pretty good dancer, having a lot of fun together with your wife or girlfriend. All of a sudden, a device that dances for you shows up, turning everything into a fiasco.
And don’t even get me started about the safety part. Drifting is a practice that takes quite some time to master. Well, it should stay this way. Computer-controlled oversteering is only encouraging more people to do it, so talking about safety here is amusing.
It’s all dark humor though and not the kind I appreciate. That’s because the self-drifting is actually just a new step in a process that’s been seeing BMWs gradually lose their ability to entertain their drivers over the last few generations.
Go for a spin in a BMW from the 2000s, for instance, and you’ll feel the badass aroma of the car getting under your skin. Take a new Bimmer for a ride though and the experience will be somewhat diluted, with many of the sporty bits being artificial.
There are countless examples of this and the first one that comes to mind has M3 written all over it. Remember the E9x M3 LCI? Among others, the M3 range revamp killed the ability to pull standing burnouts on DC-equipped cars.
Now they’re back with the 2015 M3, which has a Smokey Burnout goodie for you. Treats like these are always nice to have, but not when they’re substitutes for pleasures that made the brand what it is today.
Some will argue that this loss of feel is an inevitable process affecting all modern cars, but that’s not true. There are other brands that have found ways of including enough driving fun in their ever-safer and more efficient new cars.
I want BMW to return to its old ways. Let the engineers in the safety department work overtime, but don’t forget about those test drivers’ feelings and emotions. Otherwise, we’ll just end up with stuff like “The Ultimate Self-Driving Machines”
That’s extremely cute, but it’s wrong. BMWs were supposed to make YOU jump for joy behind the wheel... after all they do call themselves the Ultimate Driving Machines.
Most of their work here was done to spread safety technology further and even make it more affordable and I applaud that. However, showing cars that can drift while the driver keeps his hands at home, even if this is just for the sake of drawing attention, gives me nightmares about the future.
BMW never said autonomous drifting would be part of the production package coming out by the end of the decade, but the sheer demonstration makes it wrong.
Drifts have no other purpose than personal enjoyment. Relying fully on machines to do this is like replacing a Circue du Soleil act with some dancing robots shown at the 2014 CES.
We’ve had launch control for years and that’s brilliant. But why use progress for drifting or for finding the perfect racing line around a track? Yes, the pair of BMWs can do that too.
And there’s another thing. People spend years learning to battle it out on the track, whether it’s lap times or tire smoke they’re after. Then they enjoy the fruits of their passion. Well, imagine you’ve become a pretty good dancer, having a lot of fun together with your wife or girlfriend. All of a sudden, a device that dances for you shows up, turning everything into a fiasco.
And don’t even get me started about the safety part. Drifting is a practice that takes quite some time to master. Well, it should stay this way. Computer-controlled oversteering is only encouraging more people to do it, so talking about safety here is amusing.
It’s all dark humor though and not the kind I appreciate. That’s because the self-drifting is actually just a new step in a process that’s been seeing BMWs gradually lose their ability to entertain their drivers over the last few generations.
Go for a spin in a BMW from the 2000s, for instance, and you’ll feel the badass aroma of the car getting under your skin. Take a new Bimmer for a ride though and the experience will be somewhat diluted, with many of the sporty bits being artificial.
There are countless examples of this and the first one that comes to mind has M3 written all over it. Remember the E9x M3 LCI? Among others, the M3 range revamp killed the ability to pull standing burnouts on DC-equipped cars.
Now they’re back with the 2015 M3, which has a Smokey Burnout goodie for you. Treats like these are always nice to have, but not when they’re substitutes for pleasures that made the brand what it is today.
Some will argue that this loss of feel is an inevitable process affecting all modern cars, but that’s not true. There are other brands that have found ways of including enough driving fun in their ever-safer and more efficient new cars.
I want BMW to return to its old ways. Let the engineers in the safety department work overtime, but don’t forget about those test drivers’ feelings and emotions. Otherwise, we’ll just end up with stuff like “The Ultimate Self-Driving Machines”
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