BMW i3

Even if you’ve never driven the BMW i3 before (though we highly recommend it), it’s clear that the little electric city car, humble though it may be in size, is the future of motoring, thanks to its sci-fi-movie-star looks and equally “spacey” electric drivetrain.

But the i3 is so much more than just a pretty face and driving charm. Due to its ConnectedDrive technologies, it’s also quite the bright spark. And given its ability to seamlessly integrate itself into your life via your smartphone, it’s smart even when standing still.

Aside from allowing you to check the battery’s charge level when you’re far away from the car, the i Remote App also acts as a “remote control” for the i3, allowing you to lock/unlock your vehicle at the touch of a button (or, more accurately, at the tap of a screen).

The i Remote App is even able to manage the car’s charging process. While the app won’t drive the i3 to the nearest charging station and plug itself in (not yet anyway, but more on that later), what it will do is allow you to start/stop the charging, and “pre-condition” the vehicle by starting its ventilation system remotely.

And we haven’t yet gotten to the suite of ConnectedDrive features that the i3 comes with (also available across the BMW model lineup). From acting as a giant smartphone and allowing you to surf the Net or make calls to a BMW concierge, to “knowing” where the traffic is heavy so the navigation system can plan a route around traffic jams, and the ability to make an automatic call to emergency services should the unthinkable happen, you’d swear the i3 is psychic.

In the near future, an i3 with “ESP” might not be too far off, because ConnectedDrive is conspiring to make the human driver mostly irrelevant. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) trade fair last year, BMW showed off its new “drift car”, though in this case, its driver wasn’t an aggregation of flesh and bones but a collection of circuit boards.

A self-drifting M235i may sound frivolous, but the experimental vehicle will drive (autonomously, naturally) the development of BMW’s next-generation Dynamic Stability Control systems. In a bright ConnectedDrive tomorrow, your BMW will automatically keep you on the straight and narrow if you lose control, regardless of the conditions underfoot. Of course, if it can execute pitch-perfect drifts while doing so, that’s a bonus.

Fast-forward to this year’s CES, where BMW also introduced another aspect of a computer-piloted ConnectedDrive future, though this time, it slowed things down quite a bit with a self-parking i3.

A car that parks itself might not sound too noteworthy today, but unlike today’s autonomous parking systems, the Remote Valet Parking Assistant handles all aspects of the parking process. And we do mean all.

This includes hunting for a lot, avoiding parked cars (even the ones that are parked badly) and locking up after itself. All you have to do is hit a button on your smartwatch and BMW’s digital valet takes care of the rest. Needless to say, those experimental self-driving vehicles aren’t available to the public yet, but with the i3 and its Driving Assistant Plus, the car can already drive itself, in a sense.

In addition to auto-braking (a collision-prevention system that can intervene and apply the brakes in case you don’t), Driving Assistant Plus also features Active Cruise Control (ACC) with a Stop&Go function. If a vehicle is in front, it can bring the car to a complete stop, and move it off again once the vehicle in front does, all without any pedal input from the driver.

However, ACC and any other piece of ConnectedDrive tech is more than just about relieving the driver of boredom or big bouts of heroic opposite-lock on a racetrack. They are there to make driving stress-free. And a stress-free driver is a safe driver.

Yes, the driver could be even more calm if the car drove itself (though we know some people might argue with that), but for now, before we get to the electrifying future of the self-driving car, ConnectedDrive is making the roads safer… and more connected.

CONNECTED CONCEPT
At the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, BMW exhibited the Vision ConnectedDrive concept a sneak peek into what an intelligent, highly connected car of the not-too-distant future could look like.

The concept car’s ConnectedDrive features include an augmented reality head-up display that can flag road hazards in advance, and highlight which lane you should be in if you want to turn off. In addition, the concept car has enhanced smartphone connectivity, so that it “knows” where you’re going the moment you get in and then automatically plans the best route.

Now, before you dismiss all this as pie-in-the-sky stuff, you should know that the head-up display is already commonplace on BMWs, as is smartphone-to-infotainment system integration. Computer programs that can “read” your schedule/e-mail (just think of how powerful Google Now is) are already in existence as well.

The only hurdle now is integrating all those existing programs. But seeing as how BMW already made the super-advanced i3, we think this shouldn’t be too much of a task.