BMW has unveiled their new eighth-generation 3 Series, featuring their Neue Klasse design language. The exteriors evoke the calm, clean design language of the Neue Klasse concept car from a few years ago, so no surprises there. But the cockpit is quite the radical departure from conventional ones.
As Tesla and Volvo have done, the designers have jettisoned the central instrument cluster. Vital data is now presented in what they're calling Panoramic Vision, spread across a thin strip that runs across the top of the dashboard.
That Panoramic Vision screen is above the top of the steering wheel. "Driving information appears clearly within the driver's field of view without obstructing the road ahead," the company says. "Content in the center and front-passenger areas can be personalized and viewed by all occupants."
Because the driver no longer needs to look through the steering wheel to read gauges, the designers have added a chunky spoke at the 12 o'clock position (and a mirroring one at 6 o'clock), which I don't think I've ever seen in a production car. The sides of the steering wheel have received beefy gripping surfaces.
The steering wheel has also been loaded up with what BMW calls "shy-tech" controls:
"The multifunction steering wheel employs the shy-tech principle, meaning the controls on the left side for driving assistance and parking functions are only illuminated when available. The infotainment controls, meanwhile, provide haptic feedback. The clear partitioning into assistance, parking and infotainment functions lends itself to safe, intuitive operation, with no need for drivers to take their eyes off the road."
The central touchscreen has been given a gestural form, leaning towards the driver in a parallelogram shape, with what would be the pointiest corners lopped off. BMW calls this a "free-cut" design and says the screen "is angled toward the driver to reinforce BMW's traditional driver focus;" they say the driver can drag-and-drop widgets from the central touchscreen onto the Panoramic Vision screen, so perhaps the screen's odd shape facilitates this. (It's hard to tell without seeing video of the procedure.)
The new 3 Series vehicles will launch early next year, at which point we expect to see a rash of influencer videos showing us how the cockpit works.