By Chris Ward, February 17, 2025
I’m sitting at my desk, scrolling through BMW’s meticulously crafted PR release of the Vision Driving Experience, which sounds more like a shady backstreet driving school selling illegal taxi licenses. According to BMW, the Vision Driving Experience is a test mule for the Neue Klasse of second-generation EVs. However, I have a problem right from the start, as behind the scenes, BMW is lobbying the German government to delay the 2030 net zero deadline or even abandon it altogether—a move that seems less about environmental concerns and more about protecting their balance sheet.
The Neue Klasse prototype has three main objectives: improving range, efficiency, and fast charging. But that’s exactly what you’d expect from engineering research and development… progress. Meanwhile, BMW’s PR spins tales of the “Heart of Joy” and “showcasing driving pleasure,” which starts to sound like a poorly translated Chinese restaurant menu.
Apparently, the Vision Driving Experience uses a computer with ten times the processing power, which implicitly admits that their current EVs are ten times slower. But hey, a new benchmark is still a new benchmark. BMW is an engineering company, but modern EVs are software-first. Acknowledging this shortfall, BMW has introduced new software called BMW Dynamic Performance Control—probably written by someone they hired on Fiverr.
BMW also boasts that its Neue Klasse test mule has achieved recuperation efficiency gains of 25 percent, but this is the same company that once hid behind similar claims about “clean diesel” technology—better known as the Dieselgate emissions scandal.
Indeed, the press release almost feels like an admission that BMW is lagging behind in the EV race, especially since Chinese EV manufacturers have already achieved similar advancements.
Notably absent from the BMW Vision Driving Experience is any mention of battery technology, which is where the majority of future efficiency gains are likely to come from. Meanwhile, BYD is scaling next-generation solid-state batteries, which are considered the holy grail of EV battery technology due to being smaller, lighter, and offering significantly more range.
