CES 2025: BMW Unveils Panoramic iDrive High-Tech Infotainment System

BMW cars have had some of the most appealing exterior designs in the automotive world. To complement these designs, the brand has now used the opportunity of the CES 2025 to show off the fully evolved form of the Panoramic iDrive system of the brand which until now was just showcased in the teasers. To be used on the future BMW cars, it brings a combination of angular touchscreen, windshield-wide HUD and LLM-powered AI assistant.

Getting into the details, the Panoramic iDrive offers a central touchscreen. This screen sports its unique identity with a rhomboid shape. The panel housing the screen is slightly tilted towards the driver and operates with an interface consisting of a static bar which is aimed at providing quick access to important controls of the vehicle.

Also Read: BMW India Registers Highest Sales With 15,721 Cars In 2024

To make things better, the brand is offering a Panoramic Vision. This, in simple words is a display of information running along with the base of the windshield covering the width of the car. The part on the driver's side is aimed at displaying the crucial information needed by the driver like speed, active safety controls, warnings, and more on gauge clusters. Meanwhile, the rest of it is customisable.

For customisation, the brand is offering six widgets which can be dragged up from the central touchscreen with details like outside temperature, navigation ETA, and more. Supporting the Panoramic iDrive is BMW Operating System X which is built on an Android Open Source Project framework and is capable of providing real-time updates.

All of this is complemented by a completely new design for the steering wheel. This wheel comes with "shy-tech" buttons which offer haptic feedback. The steering wheel also attracts attention because of its unique appearance which gets a quad-spoke design. At first glance, it might seem like an upside down unit. But this design has been used to fill the gap present in the upper half of the steering wheel as the empty space is no longer needed to make the instrument cluster visible.