The 2024 Beijing International Auto Show was grandly opened in spring, and the BMW Group's booth was full of stars. BMW's new-generation concept car, which is coming to China for the first time, gives Chinese customers a glimpse of BMW's new definition of personal luxury mobility in the future: a very future, more BMW! Stride towards electric, intelligent and sustainable luxury! The newly released all-electric BMW i4 and the new BMW M4 continue to attract young consumers with their style, innovative design and distinctive personality, and loyalty to pure driving pleasure; MINI opens a new future for the brand with a new family, and the new electric MINI Aceman makes its world premiere. The all-new electric MINI Cooper made its official debut in China. The forward-looking minimalist design concept of the two new cars reinterprets the iconic design of MINI, and perfectly integrates the innovative characteristics of electrification and digitalization into the brand's DNA.
At the show, the BMW Group's 15 major car series under the two major brands were unveiled: the BMW X family, represented by the new BMW X5, showcased the "richest" luxury product lineup of the pioneers of the SAV sports multi-functional segment, and the BMW 7 Series, 5 Series and 3 Series composed of large and medium-sized luxury arrays, demonstrating BMW's continuous leading product strength in important core markets. From entry-level compact to large luxury cars, BMW's booth lineup covers almost all luxury segments, including gasoline, pure electric, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen powertrains, reflecting the BMW Group's strong innovation leadership and consumer appeal in China's luxury car market. In 2024, BMW will launch more than 20 new BMW and MINI brand models in China to further meet the different needs of consumers.
At this year's Beijing Auto Show, BMW Group's Senior Vice President of Technical Operations and Development, Stephen Dulihe, and BMW China R&D Center's Connected Driving, Vehicle E&E and Software Engineering Director Dr. Ke Ruiming were interviewed by EV Vision.
In response to a question about the entry of mobile phone manufacturers into the car manufacturing industry and Apple's abandonment of car manufacturing, Mr. Stephen Dulich pointed out that car manufacturing is not an easy task, it involves complex system integration, and the integration with the application on the mobile phone is two different levels. He emphasized that the ultimate purpose of a car is to provide a highly emotional digital experience, which is very different from the experience on a mobile phone and requires the collection of a large amount of data and information.
As for the definition of a luxury brand, Mr. Stephen Dulich made it clear that a luxury brand is not just a pile of high-end hardware, such as color TVs, refrigerators or large screens, but to bring users the ultimate beautiful experience. He used the example of BMW's next-generation models to illustrate how BMW integrates different technologies into the vehicle interface through excellent design to provide excellent interaction and digital experience, which is an important aspect of BMW's definition of a luxury brand.
Discussing the differences between Chinese and foreign smart applications and the digital challenges faced by the European market, Stephan Dulich emphasized the importance of selecting applications that are useful to users and integrating them into the ecosystem. He believes that it is crucial to understand the needs of customers and make them part of the vehicle system. In addition, he mentioned the technical challenges, especially the lifecycle management of systems and applications. This means that applications need to be updated and phased out in a timely manner to ensure the modernity and practicality of vehicle systems.
In particular, Stefan Doreich emphasized the importance of creating a scalable and flexible infrastructure to support the continuous development of technology. As an example, he illustrated that services unique to the Chinese market are gradually being integrated into the global market, which requires the architecture to be flexible enough to adapt to different services and applications, thus creating more possibilities. His views reflect BMW's forward-looking and adaptable approach to intelligent and digital development, as well as its deep understanding of different market needs.
Talking about the trend of integration of mobile phones and automobiles brought about by the entry of domestic mobile phone manufacturers into the automotive industry, Mr. Stephan Dulich said that BMW has noticed this phenomenon and actively embraced this innovative solution. He mentioned that BMW has integrated the BMW Digital Key function into its products, and users can use their mobile phones to remotely control and remotely park their vehicles by downloading the My BMW App.
Stefan Dulich believes that smartphones are an integral part of modern life, so BMW is happy to extend the convenience of smartphones to the car experience. BMW's in-vehicle systems are designed to be updated in the cloud just like smartphones, ensuring that the vehicle is always up to date. In addition, BMW has also introduced a WeChat in-car version for BMW models specifically for the Chinese market, which allows users to use WeChat voice calls directly in the in-vehicle system and quickly set the received location information as a navigation destination.
Mr. Stephan Dulich also shared BMW's achievements in connected driving and remote upgrading, pointing out that 22 million BMW models around the world have been equipped with connected driving functions, and more than 7 million models have remote upgrade capabilities, which shows BMW's leading position in digitalization and intelligence. Through these technologies, BMW is committed to making the digital mobility experience more convenient and seamless for users.
China occupies a central position in the BMW Group's global digital R&D roadmap. This is explained by Stefan Dulich, who points out that BMW's R&D strategy is divided into two levels: the development of global platforms and the development of market-specific applications. Although BMW adheres to globally consistent technology and product development principles, at the application level, especially in the Chinese market, 70% of the source code is specifically designed to meet the needs of Chinese consumers, covering the entire process from concept generation to product validation and final launch.
Dr. Cr. Ke further emphasized the importance of China in BMW's global R&D network, mentioning that the Chinese R&D system is BMW's largest R&D organization outside of Germany. Seventy percent of the testing and application development work carried out in China underlines BMW's commitment to the Chinese market. BMW's goal is not just to provide products with high-end equipment or powerful computing power, but to provide Chinese consumers with an emotionally rich luxury experience. To achieve this, BMW understands and meets the specific needs of Chinese customers, sometimes even by simplifying product features to better meet those needs, ensuring that consumers are ultimately provided with a truly luxurious and comfortable experience.
BMW's strength in this process lies in its strong global R&D network and deep understanding of the Chinese market. The BMW Group's R&D investment and strategic layout in China, including the opening of the new R&D center in Shanghai, strengthens BMW's R&D capabilities and market leadership in the Chinese market, providing a solid foundation for its digital transformation and electric vehicle development.
Stephen Dulich provides insight into the design considerations for the new styling display on BMW's next-generation concept car. He points out that in certain use cases, the traditional center display may not be the best choice for displaying certain information, such as weather updates. Instead, BMW's design philosophy favors an irregularly shaped central display to convey this message more effectively, a design choice that will be based on the final consideration of the presentation and design concept.
The core display of BMW's next-generation concept car adopts an innovative irregular shape, which not only reflects the "driver-centric" design concept, but also optimizes the screen shape to fit the driver's line of sight, ensuring that the driver can enjoy the best viewing angle while keeping the line of sight forward, thus providing a more intuitive and convenient information interaction experience while ensuring driving safety.
Write at the end
Automotive manufacturing is complex and distinct from mobile app integration, which requires an emotional digital experience. They define luxury brands as the ultimate experience, not a hardware pile. BMW actively embraces the trend of intelligence, attaches great importance to the Chinese market, flexibly adapts to different services, and is committed to bringing users a convenient and seamless digital travel experience. The new generation of concept cars' irregular display design embodies a driver-centric concept to ensure safe driving and intuitive information interaction. BMW is forward-looking and adaptable in terms of intelligence and digitalization.