CES 2025: Buttons are banished as BMW Neue Klasse Panoramic iDrive gives us our first glimpse of radical cabins set for next all-electric 3 Series and iX3

January 13, 2025January 9, 2025 John Mahoney 491 Views 0 Comments 3 series, bmw, iDrive, iX3, Neue Klasse

BMW has revealed its next generation approach to interior design and the headline news is angled touchscreens, a slim full-width instrument cluster and head-up display are all in.

But actual physical buttons will be a thing of the past.

Revealed at Las Vegas’ Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the first car to feature the advanced BMW Panoramic iDrive tech will be the Neue Class iX3 electric SUV that is due to be launched later this year.

Consisting of four different elements, the headline news is the Panoramic iDrive features a slim widescreen strip that stretches across the entire width of the dash.

Built to display the speedo at all times, the beauty of the new strip is owners have those choice of customising what’s displayed via six available ‘particle’ slots.

To the right of the steering wheel is a more conventional angled touchscreen, but even the simple-looking touchscreen is packed full of advanced tech including BMW’s latest Operating System X software.

Developed using an Android platform, OS X is now capable of over-the-air updates and can be operated entirely using voice commands alone – although touchscreen functionality has also been included.

Quicker and more intuitive that ever before, the new interface is said to have been completely reconfigured and now can show the sat-nav map in the background.

But all physical shortcut buttons have been removed.

To make up for that BMW says the new steering wheel has been designed to include proper buttons for those who will miss them that provide haptic feedback.

Additional haptic switches are used for the windscreen wipers, turn signal indicators, exterior mirrors, volume control, gear selectors and window demist.

The last piece of the Neue Klasse interior puzzle is a new 3D head-up display that projects information into the driver’s line of sight just above the Panoramic Vision strip.

With all the systems integrated, BMW says the head-up display is now able to broadcast navigation directions while the Panoramic Display can show other useful relevant information relating to your trip, or display a whole map overview within the central display.

Claiming it crunched real-world data gathered from its existing fleet of more than 22 million vehicles – presumably anonymously – BMW says its next-generation Panoramic iDrive design incorporates all the learnings accrued from how people interact with their cars in the real world making it as user friendly and intuitive as possible.