I wonder what @NomoTesla feels about these "promises" when it comes to software on the upcoming iX3? I'm not sure I believe them!

"BMW has pledged that its first software-defined vehicle, the new BMW iX3, won’t suffer from the software issues that have hampered rival firms.

The electric SUV, revealed at the recent Munich motor show, sits on a new EV platform and features a new computing architecture built around four ‘supercomputer’ chips that run all of the vehicle's key functions.

BMW has developed the entire software stack for the system in-house.

While rivals such as Volvo and the Volkswagen Group have struggled with their efforts to develop software-defined vehicles, BMW’s Neue Klasse chief, Mike Reichelt, is confident his firm will avoid bugs and issues.

'For us it was really important [to develop the software stack in-house],' said Reichelt. 'It’s like the transformation from the combustion engine to electric mobility: the biggest step is when you reach this change in the middle of the company."

'Every engineer at BMW is dealing with this new technology. Every function in the car has a hardware part and a software part, so we speak about function and owner and not about the hardware side or software side.

'Every engineer has to go into the digital world; that’s the transformation."

 

I wonder what @NomoTesla feels about these "promises" when it comes to software on the upcoming iX3? I'm not sure I believe them!

"BMW has pledged that its first software-defined vehicle, the new BMW iX3, won’t suffer from the software issues that have hampered rival firms.

The electric SUV, revealed at the recent Munich motor show, sits on a new EV platform and features a new computing architecture built around four ‘supercomputer’ chips that run all of the vehicle's key functions.

BMW has developed the entire software stack for the system in-house.

While rivals such as Volvo and the Volkswagen Group have struggled with their efforts to develop software-defined vehicles, BMW’s Neue Klasse chief, Mike Reichelt, is confident his firm will avoid bugs and issues.

'For us it was really important [to develop the software stack in-house],' said Reichelt. 'It’s like the transformation from the combustion engine to electric mobility: the biggest step is when you reach this change in the middle of the company."

'Every engineer at BMW is dealing with this new technology. Every function in the car has a hardware part and a software part, so we speak about function and owner and not about the hardware side or software side.

'Every engineer has to go into the digital world; that’s the transformation."

I find this highly encouraging, but after my experience being abandoned by BMW w/ software improvements less than 6 months after delivery (a management decision), I've been burned and am adopting a wait-and-see approach. Despite my vocal issues with Tesla, they are the only EV maker that has completed the paradigm shift to a largely software-driven architecture. Everyone else is struggling. Even Rivian and Lucid—who I hold in high esteem—are having trouble.

What BMW also needs to do is give the driver some credit. Stop with these region-specific locks and limitations on features that have no justifiable basis. Like not allowing personalization of the "personal mode", not allowing default startup drive modes (Tesla has no issue making chill/sport mode sticky), not allowing remote close of trunk in the US and Canada, not allowing traffic light recognition in the US, and allowing significant new features to be added only to new model years.

I want the car to set me free, not lock me down. I would respond positively to BMW announcing that it is reducing headcount in its legal department!

I want to see BMW commit to keeping older vehicle software current for as long as possible and make a specific statement that they will continue to evolve existing owners' software by adding features that were not available on the day of purchase. This is one of the aspects of Tesla ownership that is delightful. There was a time when Tesla updates broke things, but most of that is in the rear-view mirror.

I am somewhat concerned with the statement that the car has 4 "supercomputer" chips. Why does it need four? Unless it's for Level 3 driving redundancy, this seems needlessly complex and gives me some pause. I want more transparency wrt what chipset is being used to drive the graphics and infotainment. I'd love to see a name like Nvidia, and not some "custom" SOC that nobody has ever heard of.

The other question I have is whether BMW's ADAS is rolled in-house or if it's based on Mobileye. Rivian and others are moving away from Mobileye and it would be nice for BMW to not be entirely dependent on one company for its driver assistance feature set.

 

"For these software-defined vehicles, four so-called Superbrains will sense their surroundings, monitor drivers, and respond to their commands. These four big brains amass 20 times as much computing power as BMW’s current-generation EVs.

The Heart of Joy combines all powertrain, chassis, and braking functions into a single unit. Predictive algorithms operate on a high-speed bus at 1,000 'beats' per second, 10 times as fast as before.

'This heart beats very fast, so it makes the car feel alive and agile,' Thalmeier says. 'It makes a fairly heavy car handle lightly, something you’ll feel not only under high g-forces, but in normal driving.'

It's this kind of language that gives me tremendous pause. Describing things in this manner is beyond "dumbing down". It's obscuring facts in favor of hyperbole and false analogies. Why can't they just tell us what the processors are, how fast they run (using standard metrics like instructions-per-second), what is the bus data transfer speed, etc. What is this "1,000 beats per second" nonsense? That's just insulting and tells me BMW views its ownership base as technologically illiterate.

Do they even understand their target market?

These new EVs use electric motors themselves to influence the car’s handling, stability, and braking behavior. The iX3 not only regenerates 40 percent more electricity than before; BMW estimates that 98 percent of all stops in real-world driving can be handled by the electric motors, with no need for drivers to squeeze the brake pedal. The automaker says iX3 test passengers, after closing their eyes, often can’t tell that the BMW has come to a full stop, with the system delivering precision and smoothness that human drivers can’t match. Brake wear is reduced as well.

This is already true today. I never touch the brake pedal to come to a complete stop in B mode. This is not news. It already exists.

As to the rest, I can't even. Calling a computing subsystem a "superbrain" is just so insulting to our collective intelligence. It's super concerning to me that BMW's chief of tech (or whatever they call him) is putting out ridiculous fluff.