Revealed: the future of BMW

BMW has just declared an eco-motoring war cry by confirming a roofless i8 Spyder (the concept of which you'll see here), a plug-in hybrid Mini, and an extended-range i3.

And we haven’t even told you about the hydrogen cars, self-driving tech and mysterious ‘iNEXT’ model yet. Yup, it’s pretty safe to say BMW is using its 100^th birthday celebrations to look very much into the next century, not the last one. Hold on tight as we wade through BMW’s announcement and sift out the golden nuggets of news.

Having shifted 50,000 i3s and i8s so far, BMW is turning its attention to a ‘revolutionary new model’ codenamed iNEXT.

Don’t go expecting a swollen i3 – BMW says the new iCar will bring “new forms of automated driving and digital connectivity together with a new generation of electric mobility, lightweight construction and trailblazing interior design that will set new standards for the customer's mobility experience.” 

It’s the ‘customer mobility’ phrase that’s critical here – no mention of driving dynamics from the company that proudly heralds itself The Ultimate Driving Machine. BMW sees the future in self-driving ability, and from this statement, it’s going all-guns blazing against Google and Tesla. BMW’s chairman Harold Kruger has said BMW iNEXT heralds "the next era of mobility. This symbol of our technology leadership will demonstrate how we will bring the future of mobility into series production.” 

Fighting talk, and having sampled the various self-driving and gesture control modes in the current carbon-chassis 7-Series, it’s fair to say the Germans are already making headway. And meanwhile, BMW also says it is cracking on with extending battery range. Not of its next generation of hybrids, which are already pretty much sorted, but the ones after that.

Are you sweating yet, Audi? Nervous, Mercedes?

The roofless i8 Spyder isn’t really a surprise – there have been two concept versions of it, after all – but it’s still good to know the i8’s stunning form will be hitting streets sans-roof fairly soon.

Likewise, the Mini plug-in hybrid was a shoo-in since the Mini-E project back in 2008. And as the i3 has been on sale since 2013, it’s about time updated battery and drivetrain tech stretched its current 81-mile range, to compete with the likes of the 155-mile Nissan Leaf, not to mention whatever the Tesla Model 3 and Apple's rumoured project have in store…

So, is BMW covertly announcing a totally electric future? Er, no. for one thing, it’s still pressing ahead with hydrogen fuel cell development, predicting that hydrogen cars, far from being killed off by pure EVs, will coexist peacefully in the coming decades.

And what of the poor old dirty, inefficient fossil fuel-burning engine? Well, BMW reckons it’ll still be a staple across its range “for many years to come”. There is expansion of the model range planned not just in regular BMW models, but also the hotter M Performance and uber-muscled M division cars as well. In due course, the tech being developed in today’s iCars will no doubt collide with tomorrow’s M3, M5 and so on.

So, in a largely and reassuringly Germanic nutshell, that’s a peek into BMW’s crystal ball. Like the sound of what’s coming next?