BMW is completely revamping its in-car user interface, starting with new class Rolling out to sedans and eventually all models later this year, The company announced at CES 2025. Some of it looks and feels familiar, but the big change is a widget-based system that lets users customize the layout — including the car's windshield.
There isn't an actual display on the windshield though. Instead, the dashboard has an embedded screen that is reflected in a slightly treated section of glass. It's a supercharged version of a concept we've seen on other cars, presented with distinctive BMW flair.
“When we looked at all the digital possibilities, we realized that people were only using a fraction of what they could theoretically do inside the car,” BMW CTO Frank Weber told TechCrunch in an interview at the show.
Weber said BMW wanted to expand what drivers could do with a car's UI, but the design team also didn't want to overwhelm drivers with screens like the company's peers. That's why they turned to the windshield concept, which he said is a technology that's been kicking around internally at BMW for about a decade.
(The distinction between “another screen” and “information reflected on the windshield” might seem like splitting hairs to most people.) But Webber said that removing that part of the UI a bit — above the dashboard, in line with the perspective of the road ahead — is the “ultimate driving experience.” maintains the company's longstanding focus on manufacturing.)
BMW has technically shown Panoramic iDrive to the media before, most notably at an event in April. But this time, BMW has revealed the final production-purpose version, BMW Group Design chief Adrian van Heedonk told TechCrunch.
BMW hasn't discontinued all displays. The dashboard still has a central touch screen display where drivers and passengers will find climate and other general settings, a 3D map and a carousel of customizable widgets. And in front of the driver is an optional head-up display that floats above the panoramic UI.
The move to this new UI – officially called Panoramic iDrive – also marks the death of BMW's love-it-hate-it, knob-based iDrive system. Now more than 20 years old, Weber claims that most drivers rarely use the iDrive knob beyond scrolling through long contact lists or things like zooming in and out of maps. In China, he said, drivers don't use it.
The removal of the iDrive knob, plus a focus on the central display and windshield, means BMW drivers will control the panoramic iDrive UI through a combination of haptic steering wheel buttons and voice control. The latter will involve a new BMW Digital Assistant powered by a white label LLM.
“We want more information in front of you, where you're driving, to support the idea of hands on the wheel, eyes on the road,” Weber said. “And the result was, yes, there would be fewer physical buttons.”
The new UI will include third-party app support, and unlike some competitors, BMW isn't shying away from Apple CarPlay support.
“We control everything because what we want is an interface that is deeply connected to the functionality of the car,” said van Heedonk. “Obviously, we'll offer Apple Car Play and more and China and other systems and integrate them as far as possible. But you cannot fully control all car functions. We want to keep it to ourselves and to the customer's data.”
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