A century of interior innovation

All stories must begin somewhere, and for us this beginning can be found almost 100 years ago as the very first BMW 3/15 saw the day of light in 1929 — the BMW that started it all. 

Typical of its time, its steering concept was relatively simple, and featured little more than the basics: a prominent steering wheel took up most of the driver’s view, supported by a simple dashboard and a centrally placed ignition. Still, one thing was clear already: focus was put on drivers and their needs, something which would come to play a crucial role in the years to come.

Fast forward to the fast-paced seventies, and things would really begin to speed up for BMW design and engineering. When BMW introduced the world to the by-now truly classic 1972 BMW Turbo show car, a nod to the BMW image as a premium and sporty brand for real drivers found its way to the Turbo’s interior, too: the driver-oriented instrument panel.

The E38 was also the first BMW with the “Dreh-Druckknopf”, a forerunner of the iDrive Controller. The E38’s twist-and-push knob was used to control the first display screen used in a BMW, for navigation and for handling menu selections – all concepts that would later find their home in the fully fledged iDrive concept, just seven years down the road (see below).

This further solidified the “drivers first”- approach as a trademark of BMW interior design philosophy, and allowed BMW owners to focus on what essentially matters: keeping their eyes on the road, and their hands on the wheel, without any unnecessary distractions, no matter their driving needs.

Another important addition was voice control, which allowed BMW drivers to effortlessly communicate for example navigation input to the center console for the very first time.

This first saw the light of day in the 2001 BMW 7 Series, which became a major milestone in its own right.

The E65 became the first car on the world market to fully embody the new BMW ergonomic principle oben anzeigen, unten bedienen – or “show up top, control down below”. 

The concept allowed the driver to keep their eyes on the road without having to look down at the controls on the instrument panel at all – everything was now intuitively placed within reach with a clear logic in favor of the driver’s needs, with the new iDrive as the crown jewel.  

As a result, the E65 is considered the bearer of the very first iteration of the modern, driver-oriented car cockpit. This in turn meant that for the first time since 1975, a BMW was offered without some kind of geometrically angled instrument panel. The concepts which had found their way to drivers with the 1972 Turbo, and later in production thanks to the 1975 BMW 3 Series, were now regarded as outdated. Instead, the fourth generation of the iconic BMW 7 Series limousine was given a completely symmetrical instrument panel, when seen from above. 

This was further emphasized by the introduction of the very first head-up display to be included in a German production car, which projected all needed information directly to the windshield, right in front of the driver’s eyes. Two years had now gone by, and the first HUD was introduced with the launch of the 2003 BMW 5 Series, the E60.

“The addition of the head-up display, supported by voice control, meant that we broadened the choice for drivers to take control,” says Sascha Kalus, Head of advanced UX/UI BMW Group Design. “We showed that a BMW has everything you need for the perfect driving experience. You may not need everything all the time, but you can choose it if you want. It’s about this freedom, the opportunities and the experience this kind of technology gives you as a driver.”

Recent years have seen a rapid development of a number of digital additions to the BMW in-cockpit experience. 

Of these, the replacement of analogue gauges in favour of highly intuitive digital display technologies is perhaps the most groundbreaking. To achieve this, the digital design, which combines 2D and 3D graphics, is tailored perfectly to the user’s needs. The aim is to focus the driver’s attention on the given driving situation, while always providing the relevant information.

The concept, called the BMW Live Cockpit, allows for an emotional and purist driver-car interaction experience, making intelligent use of entirely digital display clusters, navigation and entertainment systems. These in turn can be controlled and interacted with by using the iDrive Controller, or gesture and even voice control for true multimodal operationality and fast access. To support voice interaction, the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant was introduced, giving drivers an AI-powered, personal “co-driver” capable of fulfilling a range of everyday driving needs and practical in-car functionalities through intuitive and customizable voice commands.

And as is the case with most other digital products, the BMW Live Cockpit components, BMW Operating System 7 and individual features can be customized and regularly updated via Remote Software Upgrades (➜ Read more: Full guide to BMW software updates). And of course, it can all be conveniently managed, with many functionalities accessible directly by smartphone in the My BMW App.