{"id":62017,"date":"2025-04-22T08:18:06","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T12:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/revolutionizing-performance-inside-bmws-vision-driving-experience-test-mule\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T10:12:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T14:12:30","slug":"revolutionizing-performance-inside-bmws-vision-driving-experience-test-mule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/revolutionizing-performance-inside-bmws-vision-driving-experience-test-mule\/","title":{"rendered":"Revolutionizing Performance: Inside BMW’s Vision Driving Experience Test Mule"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BMW Vision Driving Experience is not your typical test vehicle; it’s a glimpse into the future of electric performance and vehicle dynamics. This radical quad-motor machine is a pivotal part of BMW’s development for its next-generation electric vehicles, particularly the much-anticipated Neue Klasse models, which include the upcoming M3 EV. But what exactly makes this test mule so special, and how does it contribute to the evolution of electric driving?<\/p>\n

What Makes the Vision Driving Experience Stand Out?<\/p>\n

At its core, the Vision Driving Experience (or VDE for short) is a high-performance test vehicle equipped with four powerful motors\u2014one for each wheel. While it shares some design elements with the future M3, BMW emphasizes that the VDE serves a broader purpose as a mobile laboratory. The company has chosen to keep specific power output figures under wraps, focusing instead on the vehicle’s role in developing advanced technologies.<\/p>\n

One of the most striking features of the VDE is its innovative downforce system, which employs five fans to literally suck the car to the ground. This design is reminiscent of the McMurtry Sp\u00e9irling, showcasing BMW’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of automotive engineering. The fans are not just for show; they generate significant downforce without adding drag, allowing the vehicle to maintain stability and grip during high-speed maneuvers.<\/p>\n

The Heart of Joy: A Leap in Vehicle Dynamics<\/p>\n

At the heart of this ambitious project lies the “Heart of Joy,” a sophisticated black box computer system that integrates the drivetrain and driving dynamics systems. This groundbreaking technology is set to revolutionize how future BMW electric vehicles operate, enhancing both performance and efficiency.<\/p>\n

Frank Weber, BMW\u2019s development chief, describes the Heart of Joy as a system that elevates driving pleasure to unprecedented levels. It will first debut in the next-generation iX3, followed closely by the new 3 Series saloon. The goal is to create a seamless driving experience where the vehicle responds intuitively to the driver\u2019s inputs, whether accelerating, braking, or cornering.<\/p>\n

A Ride in the Future: What It Feels Like<\/p>\n

During a recent ride in the VDE, development driver Jens Klingmann demonstrated the vehicle’s capabilities with a thrilling burst of acceleration that left me breathless. The sheer power and torque of the quad-motor setup were palpable, even if the exact figures remained a mystery. The experience was akin to being in a high-performance electric rallycross car, showcasing the potential of BMW’s future offerings.<\/p>\n

The VDE is designed to push the limits of technology, allowing engineers to test the Heart of Joy under extreme conditions. This rigorous development process ensures that even the most basic electric models will benefit from the advancements made in this high-performance test rig.<\/p>\n

How the Heart of Joy Enhances Performance<\/p>\n

Traditionally, the powertrain and driving dynamics systems in vehicles operate separately, which can lead to delays in communication and performance inconsistencies. The Heart of Joy changes this by unifying these systems into a single unit, allowing for real-time data processing and response. This integration enables the vehicle to react up to ten times faster than previous models, significantly improving handling and stability.<\/p>\n

For instance, if the vehicle detects instability during a corner, it can quickly adjust power distribution among the motors to maintain balance. This level of responsiveness is crucial for enhancing both safety and driving enjoyment.<\/p>\n

The Role of Impeller Fans in Performance<\/p>\n

The five impeller fans on the VDE are a standout feature, generating around 1000 kg of downforce without creating drag. While they serve as an impressive demonstration of engineering prowess, BMW has confirmed that such technology is unlikely to make it into production vehicles due to cost constraints. Instead, these fans are a tool for development, helping engineers refine software and performance metrics in a controlled environment.<\/p>\n

Looking Ahead: The Future of BMW’s Electric Vehicles<\/p>\n

As BMW gears up to release its Neue Klasse models, the insights gained from the Vision Driving Experience will play a crucial role in shaping the next generation of electric vehicles. The advancements in the Heart of Joy system promise to enhance not just performance but also efficiency, with the potential for up to 25% improved energy use through better regenerative braking.<\/p>\n

The VDE represents a bold step into the future, combining cutting-edge technology with the driving dynamics that BMW is known for. As we look forward to the arrival of the M3 EV and other Neue Klasse models, it\u2019s clear that the Vision Driving Experience is more than just a test vehicle; it\u2019s a harbinger of the exciting innovations that lie ahead in the world of electric driving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"BMW<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Vision Driving Experience is test mule for Neue Klasse models<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Vision Driving Experience is a test mule for the brand’s next-gen vehicle dynamics technology<\/p>\n

\n

The radical\u00a0BMW<\/a>\u00a0Vision Driving Experience is\u00a0a quad-motor, high-performance test vehicle\u00a0that is being used to hone the advanced technology that will power its next-generation of Neue Klasse electric vehicles \u2013 including the forthcoming M3 EV.<\/p>\n

While the powertrain layout, featuring four high-power motors mounted on each axle, has clear parallels to plans for the next-generation M3<\/a>, BMW insists the Vision Driving Experience serves a wider purpose as a rolling test rig. Because the focus is on vehicle development, BMW has not given a power output for the machine.<\/p>\n

Other radical elements included the fitment of\u00a0five fans designed to suck it to the ground – like\u00a0the\u00a0McMurtry Sp\u00e9irling<\/a>\u00a0– and, a new addition for the Shanghai motor show, a see-in-the-dark livery which BMW says “underscores the innovativeness of the car”.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the key focus of the Vision Driving Experience is to be a high-performance machine that can be used to push development of the \u2018Heart of Joy\u2019, the new black box computer system that will combine the drivetrain and driving dynamics systems in all future Neue Klasse EV models. That system will first be seen in the next-generation iX3<\/a> that is set to be revealed later this year, and on the next-gen 3 Series saloon <\/a>that will follow soon afterwards.<\/div>\n

Frank Weber, BMW\u2019s development boss, said that the Heart of Joy system \u201cenables us to take driving pleasure not just to the next level, but another one beyond that,\u201d adding that the system would offer \u201cefficient dynamics squared\u201d.<\/p>\n

Autocar was given access to the Vision Driving Experience for a ride in the car, and to talk to the engineers who have developed it.<\/p>\n

First ride: inside the BMW Vision Driving Experience, and how it will develop a computer chip<\/h2>\n

“The engineers won\u2019t even tell me how much power this has,\u201d says development driver Jens Klingmann, as he casually hurls the BMW Vision Driving Experience into a corner fast enough for the tyres to howl in protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s a lot.\u201d Given that my insides are still churning from the hit of acceleration at the start, he didn\u2019t really need to say that last bit.<\/p>\n

The Vision Driving Experience is, indeed, a lot. It\u2019s a lot of car, with a lot of motors, a lot of fans (we will get to those) and a lot of performance.<\/p>\n

And it has a lot of significance for the ongoing development of BMW\u2019s next-generation Neue Klasse EVs<\/a>, which will start to arrive this year. This isn\u2019t just your average prototype, then.<\/p>\n

But at heart that\u2019s basically what it is: a quad-motor, high-power EV test mule styled on the next-gen 3 Series saloon<\/a>, which has been pounding around various test facilities during recent months.<\/p>\n

Four motors and a ridiculous power output? That sounds quite a lot like the forthcoming first electric M3<\/a>, doesn\u2019t it? Except BMW insists the Vision Driving Experience (let\u2019s call it the VDE for short) isn\u2019t a test mule for the next M3.<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, the firm describes it as a one-off test rig on wheels, a moving laboratory used to hone technology being developed for all future Neue Klasse models in an extreme environment.<\/p>\n

The development work being done with it is as relevant to the next single-motor, entry-level iX3 SUV <\/a>as it will be to whatever M division\u2019s engineers concoct for their electric offerings.<\/p>\n

Perhaps because of the development work for which it has been created, until now the VDE has been cloaked in secrecy \u2013 and we\u2019re not just talking about its camouflage wrap.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But the fact that BMW recently strapped me (thankfully tightly) into the passenger seat for a short \u2013 but very fast \u2013 ride shows that Munich now wants to showcase exactly why it has been created. Although Klingmann\u2019s inability (or perhaps refusal) to share its power output indicates that the veil of secrecy isn\u2019t fully lifted.<\/p>\n

What BMW has confirmed is that the VDE is powered by four electric motors \u2013 one for each wheel \u2013 and can produce peak torque of 13,269lb ft.<\/p>\n

And no, that\u2019s not a typo. There isn\u2019t an ofofficial power output, but given its ridiculous torque output, you can probably guess it\u2019s pretty high. BMW hasn\u2019t given any performance stats, either, but after my ride in it, I would say the 0-62mph time<\/a> can be described as \u2018brisk\u2019.<\/p>\n

Beyond the four motors, the other thing we have been told about are those fans. Five of them, in fact. BMW calls them impellers, and they serve to literally suck the car to the ground.<\/p>\n

Each fan requires 50kW of energy to run, but combined they add around 1000kg of downforce without creating any drag, in turn allowing Klingmann to push even harder in corners.<\/p>\n

All of that torque and downforce is really there to develop one small but very significant black box full of computer chips and loaded with software.<\/p>\n

That would be BMW\u2019s new Heart of Joy, the unusually named hardware and software stack that will unify the computer systems that run the powertrain and driving dynamics systems on future EVs into a single unit.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first time BMW has unified those systems, and the firm claims the system has been developed entirely in-house.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Heart of Joy will run all the key driving functions of the car,\u201d says BMW driving dynamics expert Christian Thalmeier. \u201cBut to develop those, we need to push the technology.<\/p>\n

Even production cars with only one electric motor will gain advantages from the work we\u2019re doing on a car with four motors.\u201d<\/p>\n

It might seem like overkill to build a superpowerful, fan-laden development hack just to test a computer processing unit, but the idea is that if the Heart of Joy can handle anything the VDE can throw at it in the real world, it can handle pretty much anything.<\/p>\n

So how does it work? Traditionally, the powertrain and driving dynamics systems have been separate units.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The powertrain system takes the inputs from your foot on the accelerator and sends that as a request to the powertrain, whether a combustion engine or a single or pair of electric motors.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a separate driving dynamics unit receives inputs from the steering wheel and brakes, along with any other data the car\u2019s sensors might get from the external environment.<\/p>\n

Those two systems run in parallel, so there\u2019s a small but potentially significant lag when they need to send data to each other, and there are limitations on how closely they can operate together.<\/p>\n

The Heart of Joy unites those systems into a single unit that receives all those inputs in the same place, processes them simultaneously and then sends the information to up to four motors along with the brakes, steering and so on. BMW says it allows for communication that\u2019s up to 10 times faster than that used on cars that were on sale in 2021.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big boost when trying to precisely modulate power and braking to best fit the conditions. But there are other benefits too. On most current EVs,<\/a> friction braking is controlled by the driving dynamics unit while regeneration through the motors is the responsibility of the powertrain system.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why you can sometimes feel an imbalance if you\u2019re slowing using the regen and then need to apply the brakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen recuperation is only done by the powertrain, you can\u2019t use the whole potential of it,\u201d says Thalmeier. \u201cYou need the driving dynamics system to work out how to enlarge the recuperation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He cites the example of a rearbiased car \u2013 yes, future BMW EVs<\/a> will still be rear-driven or rear-biased \u2013 cornering at speed. \u201c<\/p>\n

When there\u2019s a load change, you can only put a certain amount of longitudinal force on the tyres before the car becomes unstable,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo to keep the car balanced, you have to take away either lateral or longitudinal force. Because you\u2019re cornering and you can\u2019t remove the lateral force, you have to reduce the recuperation to keep the car stable. But that\u2019s not what we want: we want to add stability by recuperation.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, though, we\u2019re so quick at taking data from the sensors on the car about yaw rate, lateral and longitudinal acceleration and how stable the car is that we can change things. If it\u2019s still stable, we can do a bit of recuperation, and when it gets unstable, it will be quickly reduced.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another benefit: the Heart of Joy can take your braking inputs and work out the most efficient way of stopping the car, which in most cases will be via the motor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That increases the use of regen, which BMW claims makes the car up to 25% more efficient. Not a huge amount but a useful gain, given that the aim is for most drivers to not know whether it\u2019s the brakes or the motor slowing their machine.<\/p>\n

The Heart of Joy won\u2019t just help when you\u2019re slowing down your BMW, though: it will help you go faster.<\/p>\n

Again, a combustion car has a single power source, so systems such as variable four-wheel drive or torque vectoring have to go through various mechanical systems to divide up that power.<\/p>\n

But the new system can take power from one, two, three or four motors and continuously adjust where it\u2019s sent to, keeping the car better balanced and more stable. Besides simply adding raw power, Thalmeier says adding motors will make a big difference to future Neue Klasse models.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re influencing the driving dynamics,\u201d he adds. \u201cIf you think of three electric motors with one on the front axle and two on the rear, you can help steer with the rear axle by making one wheel faster and the other slower.<\/p>\n

“So you can make the car agile purely through running the electric motors at different speeds. Any existing actuator or rear-wheel steering system isn\u2019t as quick as our new electric motors will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to the passenger seat of the VDE, with Klingmann laughing as he jams the throttle and sends the machine down the straight of the BMW Spartanburg Performance Centre test track at something approaching warp speed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually surprisingly comfortable inside, with comfy sports seats and a working version of BMW\u2019s new iDrive system<\/a> on the dashboard. Even in its test hacks, Munich does premium well.<\/p>\n

But can you feel the Heart of Joy at work? Being honest, no, not really, but that\u2019s in part because on a cold day in South Carolina tyre grip is limited and Klingmann confesses the road-legal rubber is the limiting factor.<\/p>\n

But as my innards slowly settle once I\u2019ve escaped the passenger seat, the performance of the Vision Driving Experience \u2013 and the systems underpinning it \u2013 is clear.<\/p>\n

The closest comparison I can make is with a passenger ride in an electric rallycross supercar. Impressive, then. And it certainly whets the appetite for the potential of a quad-motor electric M3.<\/p>\n

Why five impeller fans are needed to make the car suck<\/h2>\n

The BMW Vision Driving Experience\u2019s five impeller fans are the car\u2019s undoubted party piece, as demonstrated when its engineers fired them up for a demonstration when it was back in the garage.<\/p>\n

For a comparison of how loud they are, imagine standing underneath the wing of an Airbus A380 when the pilot presses the start button. Essentially, they serve to stick the car to the ground, adding grip without creating aerodynamic downforce. But could they ever reach production?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou won\u2019t see anything like this in a production car,\u201d says Thalmeier. \u201cIt\u2019s just too expensive. They are just for the system on this car. If you have a lot of downforce and then you add a lot of torque, it makes it very hard to accelerate. What we\u2019re interested in with this car is how to deal with the acceleration in the software.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s purely a development tool. It\u2019s not even a driving dynamics tool; it\u2019s just another thing that makes it faster for us to develop functions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62028,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62017\/revisions\/62028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}