BMW TO USE DYNAMIC NOUS TO KEEP NEW RIVALS AT BAY

THE HEART OF Joy control system in all future BMW models will allow for an even broader range of performance – but the firm’s driving dynamics chief says that it is BMW’s extensive experience of physical engineering that will keep it ahead of Chinese rivals in offering truly dynamic EVs.

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The new i3 and subsequent Neue Klasse EVs will use a new platform and advanced computing architecture that allows the car’s systems to process information and react 10 times faster than current systems, which use a number of separate ‘closed loop’ systems.

Mihiar Ayoubi, BMW’s senior vice-president of driving experience, told Autocar that the advent of the “digital chassis” presents “the sort of opportunity that only repeats itself every 100 years or so”.

He added: “We could develop an entirely new body, which enables you to design the DNA you need to deliver good driving behaviour. Control systems can’t cheat physics: if the DNA of the car, the body-in-white, is incorrect, you can’t deliver [good] driving dynamics.”

Ayoubi described the understanding of the body-in-white chassis as “knowledge we can’t dispense with. You need that DNA and you still need a very sophisticated chassis that has both static stiffness and dynamic stiffness.”

Key to controlling the physics, according to Ayoubi, is the deflection line of the car – the path the chassis takes under stress.

He said: “The ideal deflection line is a linear one, which delivers solid transient behaviour when a car is in corners.