Final November, I strapped into the rear passenger seat of an all-electric, four-door sedan with BMW check driver and 24-hour racer Jens Klingmann behind the wheel. It was a chilly day at BMW’s Efficiency Driving Heart in Greer, SC, and beneath the five-point harnesses, roll cage, and closely camouflaged physique, Klingmann had an sudden co-pilot: a tiny black field known as the “Coronary heart of Pleasure.”
It was an odd identify for an fascinating suite of tech options powering my temporary three-lap stint on the 1.7-mile efficiency monitor. The Coronary heart of Pleasure represents an fascinating future for the German model that also needs to be referred to as the “Final Driving Machine” within the electrified future.
The automobile we rode in known as the Imaginative and prescient Driving Expertise (VDX), a one-off constructed particularly for testing this supposedly magic black field, in addition to extra upcoming options for BMW’s Neue Klasse platform. The VDX makes use of followers to suck it all the way down to the monitor for higher traction at velocity. These followers are loud contained in the automobile, making it almost unattainable to listen to way more than a roar whereas we’re hurtling across the monitor at speeds nearing 90 mph, although the automobile itself is a principally silent EV.
Within the expert arms of Klingmann, the tires whine as they strategy the restrict of their grip. There’s notably much less BMW brake squeal as that little black field does a majority of the work as we hurtle across the monitor.
The Coronary heart of Pleasure is an ECU that mixes each driving dynamics and powertrain management into one pc. Roughly eight-inches by eight-inches, the field will function the management module for the upcoming Neue Klasse electrified automobiles that can begin rolling out later this 12 months.
It was developed in-house by BMW engineers, which is exclusive since most producers cobble collectively a whole bunch of off-the-shelf parts and write software program code to make all of them talk seamlessly with each other. That leads to a form of homogeneity of driving experiences throughout totally different manufacturers since most manufacturers use the identical suppliers. So BMW tasked its engineers with interested by the right way to differentiate its EVs from the competitors by developing with a brand new, single computing system that would energy quite a lot of driving dynamics throughout BMW’s lineup – from SUVs to sports activities vehicles.
“The query is, what does driving pleasure appear to be in an period of electrification?” Christian Thalmeer, BMW’s senior driving dynamics engineer, stated. “It combines the sheer energy and torque of electrical motors, with the flexibility for these motors to sluggish and brake a automobile, and the choice to have a couple of energy supply.”
On the monitor, the VDX is a rocketship, and although we’re approaching 90 mph on the straight, Klingmann barely touches the brakes and easily lifts off the accelerator to deliver the automobile to a extra sane velocity for the sharp hairpins.
“The query is, what does driving pleasure appear to be in an period of electrification?”
BMW didn’t share all of the specs of the VDX check automobile, in addition to its insane 13,269 lb-ft of torque, and 25 p.c improve in effectivity because of the built-in brake and power recuperation. However they did share that the Coronary heart of Pleasure is ten occasions quicker than the strung-together ECUs in the marketplace.
One of many main options that BMW centered on within the growth was braking and stability management. The system can actively use regenerative braking to deliver BMW automobiles to a full cease with out the motive force ever having to the touch the pedal. The corporate says that that characteristic will result in extra stability on the restrict for the reason that system can brake every particular person wheel to create higher grip leading to recuperation that’s 60 p.c extra environment friendly.
As a result of a single pc system manages all the things from driving dynamics to powertrain output to particular person wheels, there can be much less latency within the automobile response, and also you get much less put on and tear on brakes and tires. Thalmeer stated that the brand new ECU system can shift the facility and deceleration from entrance to again and to every wheel to get the utmost recuperation and stability out of the automobile, an occasion he calls the “pleasure of stopping.”
Coronary heart of Pleasure was developed in simply three quick years and has presently been by means of greater than 7,500 hours of testing, each by the hands of skilled engineers like Thalmeer and race drivers like Klingmann. The purpose, after all, is to get future BMWs to drive extra like BMWs, and never like, say, Kias, which makes use of the supplier-to-programming mannequin for his or her EVs. The only pc additionally, conveniently, makes over-the-air updates a lot simpler for BMW.
Bringing the event in-house will not be new for BMW, however it’s comparatively distinctive in an trade that steadily appears to outdoors suppliers for all the things from voice recognition to infotainment. ECUs are typically outsourced to different corporations like Magna Steyr, for instance.
BMW CTO Frank Weber defined how the automaker’s close to failure to launch the 7-series 25 years in the past gave the corporate the flexibility and confidence to create the brand new Coronary heart of Pleasure. “It was a nightmare,” Weber advised me at CES earlier this 12 months. “We virtually didn’t make the launch of the automobile…Right now, I can say, perhaps this was the perfect factor that occurred to BMW. As a result of it was so troublesome, we needed to develop extra sturdy processes for these superior digital applied sciences a lot sooner than the others, after which we simply groomed it over time.”
“We virtually didn’t make the launch of the automobile…Right now, I can say, perhaps this was the perfect factor that occurred to BMW.”
This led the corporate to consider it may deal with the troublesome activity of bringing the ECU creation in-house. “With the ability to work with the controllers is one thing that our driving dynamics folks did already for a very long time, however they did it with suppliers,” Weber stated. “Right here, we had the data, and we developed the algorithms with suppliers… We now have to personal this, as a result of what we are able to do with this new controller, once we have a look at all the things, is simply unbelievable.”
As Weber famous, there’s been an rising push to regionalize all the things from emissions necessities to provider sources around the globe. Auto producer provide chains are deeply built-in throughout borders, and globalization like that could be very troublesome and dear to unwind. Have a look at the unbelievable quantity of harm that President Trump’s proposed 25 p.c tariffs may have on US automakers alone, with dire estimates that US automakers may shut down inside per week ought to they go into place. As Weber famous, regionalization which is used to place up boundaries between international locations, is one thing that threatens all the automotive trade. By bringing a part of the manufacturing of what makes a BMW, a BMW, in-house, the corporate can, at the least in some methods, decrease that threat.
If the temporary however thrilling expertise I had within the VDX is any indicator, the brand new Coronary heart of Pleasure, underlines BMW’s “Final Driving Machine,” roots and guarantees a very dynamic, all-electric driving future.
