OMG, he really seems to believe all that bull*sugar* ...
I agree that BMW is truly in trouble. I had a look at BMW's next "Tesla killer" project, to see what effect this would have on $TSLA and market action, this is a CleanTechnica article about BMW's of their 'next' EV yesterday:
First and foremost, BMW is very much capable of designing very well looking, conservatively designed yet distinctive cars that many, including me, find beautiful:
The BMW "iNext" is
not such a car:
Let's list all the obvious external deficiencies:
- Suicide doors. Were it ever released it would be meme fodder and a constant source of embarrassing questions to owners: "Is this really safe? What if the kids open the door while the car is moving? What if it starts rolling after you left the car and the doors trap you in both directions? Aren't you scared?". They must be aware of it that this is a non-starter, so why even try?? If you want unified access to a larger interior, use ... something like falcon wing doors that move out of the way, or invent something even better if you think such a solution exists.
- The fake grille at the nose, in a form that mimics a giant, smashed blue butterfly the car caught on the highway at 100 mph and smeared on its grille in one giant, sad mess. Firstly, it's in such a contrast with the smooth rest of a car that even drawing this on paper should have caused the designer to be fired. There not being anyone in the decision chain who said "hell no!" and that this was allowed to make it into the concept car is an epic fail of taste, IMHO.
- An incompatible color palette with cold and warm colors, both accented: i.e. the blue glowing lines are a total miss IMHO. The organizers of the show apparently noticed this fail and added that blue-ish picture in the background, but it's only a workaround for this environment.
- The embarrassingly futuristic look. Judging from their ICE offerings BMW understands it very well that most buyers of luxury cars do not want to gain attention - they want to drive an elegant, high quality car. The ones who want attention will buy a racing car or a supercar. I'm sure there are customers who'd love this, but I submit that the majority of mainstream customers won't.
Tesla understands this concept of designing conservatively yet giving futuristic
functionality very well, so does BMW, Mercedes and Audi for their ICE offerings. Yet this concept car shows none of that understanding - it's almost as if
they still didn't want their EV offerings to compete with their ICE offerings head-on. They are
still struggling to create a 'new EV style', in the hope of fragmenting demand and protecting their existing customer base.
It won't work: the Model 3 is eating 3-series sales in the U.S. alive... The effect of the Model 3 on 3-series sales in Germany will I think be a wake-up call to BMW.
In fact IMO the Model 3 is large enough to drain demand from the BMW 5-series as well: it's as wide and as tall as a 5-series sedan, but a bit shorter - yet has comparable interior volume (and a frunk), which many Europeans would find an improvement over the 5-series because shorter cars are easier to park.
It doesn't get better if we look at the iNext interior:
- I tentatively call this the "1960s sci-fi movies said hello!" look. There's absolutely nothing appealing (to me) about this look: it's a sterile hospital interior that doesn't give any safe place to sit.
- Hardwood fail: the wasteful hardwood cover's striping is off and elongates a space that should be made visually wider. Also, hardwood cover doesn't exactly spell "eco friendly", if they wanted to create any green cred ... Also, hardwood tends to be pretty slippery when your shoes are even just a tiny bit wet, so people would put mats over this anyway - so why even bother?
- The right side screen is rather distracting to the driver, and passengers would want to watch movies on it. Why create such a temptation?
- All the geometric ratios are off - not a single golden ratio in sight. 3 different rectangles in an incoherent jumble. The rightmost screen also imbalances the visual impression, it's a clear answer to the "which is the largest, most expensive LCD screen you can fit in here??" question which should never have been asked. It's similar to a design West Coast Customs throws together in a week, for a rich customer with particularly bad taste.
- The chrome steering wheel is a usability fail: the always moving glittery motion of reflections from the chrome distracts the driver all the time. Steering wheel and key portions of the front of a car should be matte black - with a few spots of white for horizontal surfaces if the interior is white.
I could go on and on... I realize that this is a "concept car", mostly for show, but still it's sending all the wrong signals.
TL;DR: the BMW iNext is not a Tesla killer, it's a BMW killer.
