The BMW Vision Driving Experience Is A 13,000lb ft Statement Of EV Intent

The swirly dazzle-camo-wrapped saloon car you see before you is the BMW Vision Driving Experience concept. What it really is, though, is an elaborate display case for some wires and circuit boards.

Those electric gubbins are what BMW calls the ‘Heart of Joy’, a central control unit that’s due to underpin BMW’s upcoming ‘Neue Klasse’ EVs, the first of which will arrive in production guise later this year. It, apparently, will imbue these cars with some all-important BMW-ish handling.

The VDX, then (as BMW has helpfully abbreviated it), is designed to show off just what the control unit is capable of. It produces a total of 13,269lb ft of torque, and no, that isn’t a typo. BMW says it’s packed such a face-melting slug of torque to prove that the Heart of Joy can deal with stuff way beyond what you’d likely find in a normal road car.

It’s said to help out in the corners, too – combined with BMW’s Dynamic Performance Control torque vectoring system, the VDX can, in its manufacturer’s words, “be threaded through corners with exceptional precision.”

It’ll apparently even make being stuck in stop-start traffic more enjoyable, where “direct signal transmissions and rapid information processing ensure an even more compelling driving experience.” We’re not totally sure what this means, but if it can somehow eliminate the misery of rush-hour traffic, then count us in.

Where BMW’s really proud of its work with the Heart of Joy, however, is in the brakes – and how little they’re required. In the VDX, 98 per cent of braking can apparently be handled by the motors’ regen effect, with the physical brakes only needed in emergency situations, like a squirrel running out into the road (BMW may not have cited this exact example. 

Those light-up strips on the wheels display what’s going on with the powertrain – green means acceleration, blue indicates regen, and they go orange when the actual brakes are in use.

It’s not really the point of the car, but we can read a bit into the VDX’s styling. It’s pretty clearly an evolution of 2023's Vision Neue Klasse concept and gives us our best indication yet of what to expect from the production saloon. Before we see that, though, a crossover will arrive, previewed by last year’s Vision Neue Klasse X.

As for the VDX, it’s already undergone a successful endurance test at BMW’s test track in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It’ll get an official debut – presumably shorn of camouflage – at the Shanghai Auto Show in April.