BMW had one of the more forward-thinking concepts at CES. The i Vision Dee is a talking electric sedan with an artificial intelligence that BMW says “will go far beyond the level of voice control and driver assistance systems we are familiar with today.”
The name “Dee” stands for Digital Emotional Experience. One notable feature is an advanced head-up display that can display driver information on the full windshield at a base level and is capable of projecting virtual reality on the windshield. BMW says the AI can get excited when it sees you and can express its mood via screens on the front grille.
If that wasn’t enough, the i Vison Dee is covered in 240 e-ink panels, including the wheels, that allow it to shift colors at will. You can have a purple car one day and a checkerboard pattern the next.
I don't know about you, but if I want to have something that will get excited when it sees me, I'll get a fucking dog. I don't need to have a relationship with a goddamn machine.
A German car that talks to you? "Nein, nein, nein! Ve are not moving until you fasten your seatbelt" "Ach du lieber, you spilled your coffee ON MY CLEAN FLOOR! WIPE IT UP, NOW!!"
I imagine that the DMV and the cops are going to have conniption fits at the idea of having a car that can essentially repaint itself at will. Maybe it can be programmed to display messages, such as "use your blinker next time, asshole."
LOL!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree!
I have driven the wheels off a few old trucks, and one motorcycle.
ReplyDeleteBMW ~ LOL. When we started shopping for an electric we looked at beemers. We stopped at heated seats are a monthly subscription.
Taking delivery on the eMini Woden'sday ...
Holy shit, Ten Bears, you're absolutely correct. What a bunch of greedy fucking Krauts.
ReplyDeleteAugustine's Law #IForget:
ReplyDelete"Anything that isn't in a design, won't break"
There are so many things in such a design that will break or malfunction in some ghastly, never-envisioned and possibly mortal way....and Murphy doesn't sign waiver because you're a detail-obssessed German (though maybe a partial waiver if you're Japanese).
You will be lucky to have a single digit MTBF, maybe even worse than driving a Ferrari.
Tesla's autopilot and blart-and-bonkus space age wowie features have shown us what comes of this.
Why or why can't anyone field a bog standard Model-T simple EV where the most complicated things is the keyfob (with a key, thank you, none of the wireless magic)? Everybody has to show how effing clever they are, with more stuff hanging off than a Mardi Gras float.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I met someone once with a 400,000 mile medallion on their old BMW bike, a testimony to simplicity and quality....and superior defensive driving skills.
Well. When your snazzy electric lightshow Bmer chokes with the blue screen of death, hopefully you can coast to the side of the road...then push the big red switch in the glove box. It won't reboot the car, but it will turn it into a Help-I'm-An-Idiot light show that will rival a supermarket parking lot circus. You will be the freak show.
When I wuz a kid, yea 60 years ago, my father bought two Bugattis for a song. Real machines: class, responsiveness, utter dependability....thoroughbreds.
http://sdean.net/bugattis.html
Now the pride of Germany puts on a clown suit. Did they have a hostile takeover by McDonnell Douglass bean counters?
Back in the 60s I saw a movie with a car that had a message scrolling tail light set up that could be changed with voice commands. Today that still makes more sense than what BMW proposes.
ReplyDeleteHummmm…MINI, by BMW…just saying…
ReplyDeletemontag, while driving down the Taconic through one of its curvy hilly section, I got behind a new pickup with a flashing red lightshow on the back every time the driver touched the brakes. I. Could. Not. Look. Away. Easily anyway. It was definitely hazardous to everyone else, though I sure he thought it as trick as ever could be.
ReplyDelete**** me!
ReplyDeleteIt’s time to face the facts, BMW isn’t making cars for me or anyone like me anymore. We just aren’t their clients.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a42087296/we-arent-bmws-target-market-anymore/
And you're at the mercy of shitty software too.
British Leyland; builds Land and Range Rovers, Mini Coopers and Triumph motorcycles. To BMW standards. Ford builds Jaguars, GMC builds Chevys, Kia Harleys... to fall apart in three years.
ReplyDeleteYou have a point, but if you put your hat on right, it won't show ...
My friend Rob who runs a wrecking yard says that BMW stands for "break my window"...
ReplyDelete-Doug in Sugar Pine
I test drove a car that kept on telling me I was straying from my lane. No way I going to have a car tell me "Stay off of the sidewalk". /S
ReplyDeleteBet they charge for the AC too and the drive down the road fee.
ReplyDeleteWe have maybe reached the point of absurd.
What galls me,if you take the average electric say a Volt and
pull of all the unessential electric stupid ass gadgets you
may increase the range significantly.
Lets face it the EVs are getting about the same or close to
the range of the 1903 White electric, That's progress???
I don't think so.
Eck!
On the other hand, if my car could say "Yes, Gerald, that other driver is a fucking idiot. Shall I activate the death ray?" I might buy one.
ReplyDeleteThe top link on my roundup today is Electric Cars Are Bringing Out the Worst in Us.
ReplyDeleteI have been complacent, adjusting ...
Ten Bears, not quite right. British Leyland was broken up in the 80’s, and the Rover Group was acquired by British Aerospace in 1988. the Rover Group was then acquired by BMW in 1994, who broke up the Rover Group in 2000, retaining MINI. With regard to the rest, Tata owns Jaguar Land Rover plus the Rover name, and SAIC owns MG.
ReplyDeleteTriumph Motorcycles is an independent company, and a follow on to Triumph Engineering.
From an article back in 2015.
ReplyDelete"John Deere and General Motors want to eviscerate the notion of ownership. Sure, we pay for their vehicles. But we don’t own them. Not according to their corporate lawyers, anyway.
In a particularly spectacular display of corporate delusion, John Deere---the world's largest agricultural machinery maker ---told the Copyright Office that farmers don’t own their tractors. Because computer code snakes through the DNA of modern tractors, farmers receive “an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.”
Source: https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/
Greed has no boundaries.
Dale