BMW must’ve thought that the i3 and the work that has gone into making it come to life isn’t appreciated enough so they put together a 3 minute video in which they explain exactly how this car came to life, from a sketch to production.
The first idea and first problems came up when the management and engineering teams got together and wanted to define what a ‘Megacity Car’ is. How do you explain to your target audience what you’re trying to put together? It’s a really tough thing to do.
Of course, after plenty of research, the designers went to work, trying to sketch how the i3 would look like and its brother, the i8, at the same time. Therefore, everything started with a sketch.
Another challenge was to create the new i sub-brand in such a way that it would have its own personality and feel while also incorporating BMW’s core attributes and characteristics. By integrating well known design features into the end product (like the kidney grilles up front and the corona rings in the headlights) they managed to do so.
Then it was time to analyze the cars from the ‘audio point of view’. In this case it was more important than in others because they would be running in all-electric mode, basically having no engine sound at all at times. That might not sound like a problem at first but once you drive the cars, you start to realize just how important it is.
However, what the driver hears was left on the backburners, the sound designers focusing their attention on what the people on the outside will hear. That’s because in the future, it is believed that cars like the i3 will be predominant. Therefore, they had to ask themselves ‘what will the streets sound like in the future?’ a truly interesting question.
Of course, aerodynamics, rolling resistance and plenty of other factors also had to be taken into consideration but we won’t go through all of them now, we’ll let you learn all about them in the video below. Enjoy!
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