New BMW Vision Driving Experience previews all-electric M3, and we’ve been for a ride in it!
BMW's bonkers rolling laboratory uses four electric motors to produce huge power, and five impellers to keep it stuck to the road
This is the BMW Vision Driving Experience: a rolling laboratory built solely, we’ve been told, to push the limits of the brand’s next-generation electric car platform and software. However, the only thing most people are going to see when they look at the gloriously maniacal saloon is a new BMW M3.
We can’t really blame them, because the Vision Driving Experience (or VDX as we’re going to call it from now on) is based on BMW’s Vision Neue Klasse concept that was revealed in 2023, and previews the design of the all-new 3 Series coming next year, as well as the next M3 due to arrive in 2027.
We also couldn’t help but notice that the flared wheelarches, aggressive front bumper with its speed hump-annihilating splitter, sizable bootlid spoiler and illuminated kidney grilles are all elements that featured in our exclusive image of the genre-defining sports saloon’s next iteration.
The VDX even uses an all-electric, quad-motor powertrain, which we’ve known for some time will be available in the next M3 and have been told can deliver up to 1,341bhp – the equivalent of one megawatt of power. However, the M3 probably won’t have that much on tap, and it almost certainly won’t generate the same earth-shattering 18,000Nm of torque as the mad machine you see here.
Among the features that definitely don’t have any production relevance – although we’d love to be proven wrong – are the five impellers the VDX uses to create more than 1,200kg of downforce, sucking the car into the tarmac before it moves an inch, producing a category five racket as they do so.
You’re sure to have noticed the LED strips in the wheels which glow green when the car is accelerating, blue when it’s recuperating energy and orange if the friction brakes are being used. This is to let engineers know what the drivetrain is doing as the car flies past on a test track, so are not for production either – although they would certainly turn heads in the office car park.
Although our imaginations are running wild, BMW has been focused on using the VDX as a test rig for its latest EV technology – specifically, the innovative new ‘Heart of Joy’ control unit and its Dynamic Performance Control software that will serve as the mastermind/superbrain for every pure-electric model in the brand’s upcoming Neue Klasse generation that begins with the new iX3 launching later this year.
The name Heart of Joy doesn’t quite convey its importance, because this little box of electronic wizardry controls the powertrain and driving dynamics, meaning it’s responsible for managing acceleration, braking, steering, vehicle stabilisation and even charging. All within a single unit that processes information ten times faster and with minimal delay, compared to existing systems which rely on multiple separate control units.
Of course in the VDX, the Heart of Joy has to juggle all that, plus hypercar-levels of power and those five impellers, so it’ll certainly be able to handle whatever you might throw at it on your daily commute.
Speaking of which, Christian Thalmeier, a driving development expert at BMW for more than 20 years, tells us the Heart of Joy will provide customers with a new experience behind the wheel, whether they’re parking, on the motorway or belting down country roads.
Benefits for drivers begin with incredibly smooth stopping, which Thalmeier claims is so smooth that most passengers won’t be able to feel the car coming to a standstill.
BMW has achieved this by only using the electric motors and regenerative braking to slow the cars down. The exceptions are when going 90mph or faster, or if an emergency stop is required, when the brake discs are engaged. That means day-to-day you also won’t hear any squeaking or other noises from having to use the physical brakes.
By enhancing the regen braking capabilities, Neue Klasse models will recuperate 60% more energy when in rear-drive form, and 40 per cent more for all-wheel drive versions, compared with existing EVs. That in turn helps improve efficiency by 25 per cent, and provides extra range.
Thalmeier confirmed to us that Neue Klasse will be programmed with BMW’s signature rear-drive bias, which will be good news to fans of the brand. BMW has also worked to make Neue Klasse models feel more precise and consistent through corners, we’re told, and to deliver better stability.
We’ll judge for ourselves in time, but it helps that the Heart of Joy is expandable, so can also manage a drivetrain involving a limited-slip differential and rear-axle steering – both of which we suspect will make an appearance on the next M3.
Finally, while BMW’s existing architecture for electric cars can support two e-motors at most, the Heart of Joy has unlocked the possibility of tri- and quad-motor powertrains. The very simple benefit, Thalmeier explained, is “the more engines, the more power”.
He added: “It’s obvious if you want to go from 0-60mph in 1.8 seconds, then it’s better to use more than two electric engines because if you only have two they have to be bigger, so it’s easier to have four smaller ones.”
Having four e-motors, like you’ll find in the Rimac Nevera hypercar or BMW’s VDX, also allows for torque vectoring by adjusting each motor’s speed for even greater agility. And of course, the calculations for all that are handled by the Heart of Joy.
We ride shotgun in the BMW Vision Driving Experience
Despite a lot of grovelling, we were not allowed to get behind the wheel of the power hungry Vision Driving Experience when we saw it for the first time late last year. Thankfully, BMW M Motorsport works driver Jens Klingmann was on hand to take us out for a few short laps on the test track at BMW’s Performance Centre in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
The first thing we notice when stepping into the VDX’s surprisingly well-built cabin (for a test mule anyway), is that it features BMW’s new Panoramic iDrive cockpit design which will also be used in the upcoming Neue Klasse models, including the unconventional four-spoke steering wheel and huge, oddly-shaped – but incredibly sharp – control touchscreen.
The most impressive element, however, is the pillar-to-pillar instrument display stretching across the base of the dashboard. It's so clear, thanks to high contrast levels, that everyone in the car can read it.
We start off in Comfort mode, or “supermarket mode” as Klingmann calls it, before launching the VDX and the whining chorus of the four electric motors begins. Approaching the first corners, we start to understand what Thalmeier was telling us about the supremely smooth braking.
The VDX remains impossibly flat as Klingmann effortlessly flows it through bends, then as we pick up more speed, the car begins to rotate more and we glide out of the long sweeping turns on the track.
Switching to Drift mode deactivates the traction control, increases the power output and makes throttle response almost instantaneous, which Klingmann is more than happy to demonstrate by planting his foot on it when exiting corners, pushing us back into our headrests.
“It’s very easy to get some wheelspin,” he says before skilfully drifting the VDX around the bends, then giving the tyres a Viking send-off by performing an enormous four-wheel burnout along the main straight – which caused the cabin to quickly fill with tyre smoke, because we may or may not have bumped the window switch…
Klingmann briefly toggles to Track mode to activate the impellers, but we can’t feel their full effects because the VDX is running without the side skirts needed to generate maximum downforce. However, it still gives us another chance to hear them working, and we must admit that the noise isn’t nearly as deafening while the car is moving as it was in the workshop where we first fired them up.
It was only once we’re safely back in the workshop, and our heart rates had returned to a resting pace, that Klingmann tells us the VDX was producing around two-thirds of the power it’s truly capable of, and that he only drove it for the first time a few days prior. Neither of these we’d have guessed.
“I’m still learning, but we already have a connection, like we’re friends,” he says. But he adds: “As a driver, I want to push it further. Let’s put it on a slick tyre, and see what it can do, especially because there’s still so much potential to be extracted.”
If we had any concerns about the all-electric version of the next BMW M3, they’ve been largely put to rest by the thrilling, tyre-slaying Vision Driving Experience and the possibilities unlocked by the Heart of Joy.
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