Photo: BMW AG, modified by autoevolution
Firstly, I should probably make a somewhat shameful, for a car journalist, disclosure about myself. Growing up, maybe even up until my early twenties, BMW was one of my least favorite carmakers. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but the root cause of my displeasure with the Bavarian automaker was probably the hype that was surrounding it.
What my teenage brain was seeing back then was an aura of unnecessary gloat emanated by every single BMW owner I saw on the road, no matter if he or she was driving a family orientated 318 tds Touring E36 or a lightweight autobahn-stormer like the M5 Winkelhock Edition E34.
I thought I saw through the bullsh*t marketing since there was no way that a 1.7-liter diesel wagon was equipped with anything that could offer even a tenth of the much coveted “BMW driving pleasure.”
It only took me a few years of driving an assortment of cars from BMW and other carmakers after becoming a journalist and my aversion toward what I thought was nothing but ballyhoo transform into something else entirely.
Nowadays, even before jumping inside a Bavarian-developed vehicle I just know it will give me an extra bit of joy, no matter what it’s powered by. The steering will provide me with a tiny bit more feedback and will be more direct, the power delivery will be slightly more abrupt and with every change of direction the car will feel more nimble than almost every direct rival.
From the i3, which feels like an electric hot hatch, to the M760Li, which changes direction like no 2+ ton limousine should be allowed to, every BMW model continues to offer what I used to think was a lie - pure, unadulterated driving pleasure.
With this confession out of the way, I shall now proceed to explain why I think BMW is making a huge mistake and is heading into a grimmer future that its marketing wants everyone to believe.
With the launch of the Vision iNext, a pseudo-SUV with electric drive and self-driving capabilities, BMW has begun a slow and painful process of self-destruction.
I’m not talking about market share, profits or even the carmaker’s fan base, but about the death of the purest and arguably best marketing slogan of all time, which has been true for pretty much every single BMW in history, starting with the 315/1 and 328 Roadster.
There have been direct rivals that occasionally offered more comfort, more luxury, better handling, more interior space and even more performance than an equivalent BMW, but none of them has created a religion surrounding the “driving pleasure” slogan in nearly each and every one of their products like BMW did.
The Vision iNext near-production concept signals a paradigm shift in how BMW will continue to exist as a car company in the future. Like many other competitors fighting for the same slice of pie, BMW will no longer be just a supplier of “nice to drive means of transportation” but a technology provider.
That, in itself, is no bad thing, since everyone else and their cousin is already doing it on some level, and it’s also one of the only ways to survive and expand in a future soon-to-be dominated by automation in pretty much every field.
Am I afraid that automation will destroy driving as we know it? Of course I am, and I’m not the only one, not to mention that Level 5 autonomous driving is no longer a possibility but a given in a few years.
That is beside the point, though, and I’m not chastising BMW for jumping on the self-driving bandwagon since everyone else is bound to do it at some point in the future.
What I don’t think is a good idea is to casually introduce this technology packed in the body of a compact crossover that looks like the four-wheeled version of a Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig. It’s not that I find it hideous, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, nor its crossover status or its electric drive, although each of these details make it less appealing in my book. No, it’s the simple fact that it exists and will have a production version as well in about three years time.
In my humble opinion, BMW seems to have lost its way. After mulishly refusing to finally give the world a direct successor to the M1, to introduce Level 5 autonomous technology into production using a bloated electric crossover is simply a death warrant to the very idea of driving pleasure.
There is no way around it. BMW has matured but in a way similar to how the head of a family gives up on the last remnants of its youth by replacing his two-door sports car with a 7-seat minivan. Or people who start counting calories and evading invisible things like gluten after eating through mountains of cheeseburgers and pizza until a few years ago. Or an automaker becoming a tech company.
The saddest thing is that the Vision iNext is the safest bet that BMW could make, and its production version will triumph.
I thought I saw through the bullsh*t marketing since there was no way that a 1.7-liter diesel wagon was equipped with anything that could offer even a tenth of the much coveted “BMW driving pleasure.”
It only took me a few years of driving an assortment of cars from BMW and other carmakers after becoming a journalist and my aversion toward what I thought was nothing but ballyhoo transform into something else entirely.
Nowadays, even before jumping inside a Bavarian-developed vehicle I just know it will give me an extra bit of joy, no matter what it’s powered by. The steering will provide me with a tiny bit more feedback and will be more direct, the power delivery will be slightly more abrupt and with every change of direction the car will feel more nimble than almost every direct rival.
From the i3, which feels like an electric hot hatch, to the M760Li, which changes direction like no 2+ ton limousine should be allowed to, every BMW model continues to offer what I used to think was a lie - pure, unadulterated driving pleasure.
With this confession out of the way, I shall now proceed to explain why I think BMW is making a huge mistake and is heading into a grimmer future that its marketing wants everyone to believe.
With the launch of the Vision iNext, a pseudo-SUV with electric drive and self-driving capabilities, BMW has begun a slow and painful process of self-destruction.
I’m not talking about market share, profits or even the carmaker’s fan base, but about the death of the purest and arguably best marketing slogan of all time, which has been true for pretty much every single BMW in history, starting with the 315/1 and 328 Roadster.
There have been direct rivals that occasionally offered more comfort, more luxury, better handling, more interior space and even more performance than an equivalent BMW, but none of them has created a religion surrounding the “driving pleasure” slogan in nearly each and every one of their products like BMW did.
The Vision iNext near-production concept signals a paradigm shift in how BMW will continue to exist as a car company in the future. Like many other competitors fighting for the same slice of pie, BMW will no longer be just a supplier of “nice to drive means of transportation” but a technology provider.
That, in itself, is no bad thing, since everyone else and their cousin is already doing it on some level, and it’s also one of the only ways to survive and expand in a future soon-to-be dominated by automation in pretty much every field.
Am I afraid that automation will destroy driving as we know it? Of course I am, and I’m not the only one, not to mention that Level 5 autonomous driving is no longer a possibility but a given in a few years.
That is beside the point, though, and I’m not chastising BMW for jumping on the self-driving bandwagon since everyone else is bound to do it at some point in the future.
What I don’t think is a good idea is to casually introduce this technology packed in the body of a compact crossover that looks like the four-wheeled version of a Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig. It’s not that I find it hideous, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, nor its crossover status or its electric drive, although each of these details make it less appealing in my book. No, it’s the simple fact that it exists and will have a production version as well in about three years time.
In my humble opinion, BMW seems to have lost its way. After mulishly refusing to finally give the world a direct successor to the M1, to introduce Level 5 autonomous technology into production using a bloated electric crossover is simply a death warrant to the very idea of driving pleasure.
There is no way around it. BMW has matured but in a way similar to how the head of a family gives up on the last remnants of its youth by replacing his two-door sports car with a 7-seat minivan. Or people who start counting calories and evading invisible things like gluten after eating through mountains of cheeseburgers and pizza until a few years ago. Or an automaker becoming a tech company.
The saddest thing is that the Vision iNext is the safest bet that BMW could make, and its production version will triumph.
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