BMW Is Testing an All-Electric Prototype With ‘Super-Brain’ Computers

BMW has been working on its Neue Klasse platform for future EVs for years now, inspired by legendary BMW cars of years past. The platform is intended to be a huge electric leap forward, despite the current dip in EV interest, and, this week, BMW said it would include on-board computers with “10 times” the processing power of older models.

BMW calls these “super-brain” computers the car’s “Heart of Joy,” and says they will control systems on the car including the electrical and digital systems, and what BMW calls “driving pleasure.” BMW says there will be a lot that driving pleasure, which the marque is currently testing in a prototype called the BMW Vision Driving Experience.

“The Heart of Joy enables us to take driving pleasure not just to the next level, but another one beyond that,” Frank Weber, a BMW board member, said in a statement. “In addition, we are further increasing efficiency, and therefore boosting range, as in future the driver will brake almost exclusively using energy regeneration. This is Efficient Dynamics squared.”

BMW is testing the Vision Driving Experience concept at the BMW Performance Driving Center in South Carolina, where BMW has both a track and an enormous factory. BMW says the car’s software was developed in-house, and the prototype produces up to 13,269 ft lb of torque, or about 20 times more than the average internal combustion engine pickup truck.

“If the control system can deal with an explosion of power of this magnitude,” BMW says, “it will be able to handle the demands of everyday driving with ease.”

BMW also said that there is a 25 percent increase in efficiency because of energy recuperation in braking. The car uses regenerative braking to such a degree that conventional brakes are only needed for emergencies or other sudden, unexpected stops.

BMW says the first Neue Klasse car will go into production in Hungary later this year and eventually in the U.S., too. It’s expected to be an SUV and pricing has not been announced.

Click here for more photos of the BMW Vision Driving Experience.

See Also

Here’s Why the 1963 Buick Riviera Is Among GM’s Greatest Postwar Cars