It wasn’t so long ago you could spot an electric vehicle in traffic and know it was electric. It looked like some sleek futuristic tinker toy designed by Buck Rogers. Until recently, electric vehicles looked less like cars and more like science fiction.
BMW wants to change all that. Road and Track recently ran an article stating the company plans to make electric cars look “more boring.” It’s not so much that, really. They want their electric cars to look like everyday cars. The future is electric. Why shouldn’t they look like other cars? They will still require the same BMW scheduled maintenance.
“BMW has decided that despite all the new engineering under the skin of the new 3 Series, the styling of the all-important sedan would only be very mildly updated… As far as its exterior goes, the i division’s next move feels like a 180 degree turn from the futuristic i3 city car and i8 plug-in hybrid.”
Green Doesn’t Need to Look Trendy
Our BMW technicians love saving the planet and all. But do you need to drive ridiculous wheels just to live green?
BMW Design Director Adrian van Hooydonk couldn’t agree more. As he told Autocar:
“Electric mobility will spread through our entire vehicle range in quite a short space of time—to the point that electric or plug-in hybrid is just another option box you tick as you order the car. The fact is that BMW customers want a dynamic car, whether it is a battery-electric vehicle or not, and so there is increasingly less reason to make these kinds of cars look different.”
It’s a similar approach Audi and Mercedes have taken with their vehicles. Electric is just going mainstream. Our mechanics at our Cincinnati auto garage can certainly attest to that. That’s why we’re hiring more electrical specialists who are better equipped to care for these electric cars.
Innovation Will Continue
Not that the mainstreaming of electric vehicles means the marketplace will ever become boring. Innovation will continue to drive change and progress.
“The i brand stands for inspiration and innovation, and electrification is not the only area of our industry that marks a significant change,” van Hooydonk told Autocar. “It’s pretty clear that there will still be i cars, and that the designers will be able to search for different things.”
