The BMW Group presented its “driving and user experience of the future” at CES 2025, which provided the first opportunity for potential customers to see and feel the close-to-production version of the new iDrive and its headlining Panoramic Vision. The software underpinning the display and operating concept is the new BMW Operating System X.

“With this advance, we are giving one of the world’s best and most comprehensive infotainment systems even greater capability and once again setting the industry benchmark in multimodal interaction,” said Frank Weber, the Board of Management Member of BMW AG responsible for Development. “Starting with the first series-produced Neue Klasse model at the end of this year, the new BMW Panoramic iDrive will form an integral part of all future BMW models.”

BMW aims to reinvent itself with the Neue Klasse production models coming later in 2025, leading the automaker into a new era by demonstrating its ability to innovate in the core areas of electrification, digitalization, and circularity. So far the automaker has shown SUV and sedan concept vehicles for the new multi-model line.

The Panoramic iDrive is scalable and will be integrated into all new BMW models—across all vehicle segments and with all drive system technologies—from the end of 2025, with the driving experience taking “center stage.” BMW wants its driver to feel at ease and in full control over the vehicle, with particular attention paid to the details.

The automaker says that the user interface has been designed as intuitively and adaptively as possible to ensure seamless interaction, the resulting holistic experience enhanced by a harmonious combination of sound and light, and innovative design.

“Technology and customer preferences are changing more quickly than ever,” said Adrian van Hooydonk, Senior Vice President of BMW Group Design. “The design of digital experiences and sound is playing an ever more important role. The new BMW Panoramic iDrive not only makes our vehicles smarter and more user-friendly; it also enables much more extensive personalization, which turns every new BMW into a car that is very much the user’s own.”

One element in the holistic experience provided by the Panoramic iDrive is the new HypersonX sound experience in the Neue Klasse models. Developed by the BMW Group Sound Design Studio, it comprises 43 signals and special driving sounds for Personal Mode and Sport Mode. The multi-dimensional spectrum adapts the sounds precisely to the driving situation to create an emotional interaction between the driver and their BMW.

 

Four elements

The new iDrive display and operating concept merges four central elements.

The Panoramic Vision head-up display projects “3D effect” content onto a black printed surface in the lower section of the windscreen from A-pillar to A-pillar visible to all occupants. The most important driving information is projected into the driver’s line of sight above the steering wheel. The driver can personalize the content in the central and front passenger areas via the central display.

The new, optional BMW 3D head-up display above it on the windshield and coordinated with the Panoramic Vision band now shows navigation and automated driving information in the driver’s field of view. The level of innovation achieved by the two head-up display technologies is underlined by several BMW Group patent applications.

On the central display with matrix backlight technology, an updated menu structure with QuickSelect ensures easier operation by touch. The “free-cut-design” display is located near the steering wheel in an ergonomically ideal position. As many as six content widgets can be transferred to and arranged on Panoramic Vision with a swipe on the central display.

The new multifunction steering wheel uses BMW’s shy-tech approach, with relevant buttons illuminated to highlight available functions. The steering wheel serves as the primary physical control. Its active haptic feedback buttons are said to have well-judged, relief-like surfaces to make them easy to locate so the driver can press them without diverting his/her gaze from the road. The buttons follow the familiar principle of driver assistance functions on the left side and content-controlling functions on the right.

The combination of the four elements re-interprets BMW’s customary “hands on the wheel, eyes on the road” approach that it hopes sets the benchmark for driver focus and presents a unique form of intuitive, use friendly, and ergonomically optimized operation. The Panoramic iDrive is designed to always give the driver “the right information in the right place and at the right time.”

The system is engineered with an optimal combination of analog and digital controls through the use of switches, buttons, touch, and voice control. There are haptic switches for the windscreen wipers, turn signal indicators, exterior mirrors, volume control, gear selectors, and window de-icers. Other functions—such as for telephone, media control systems, navigation, assisted driving, personalization of displays, and selection of MyModes—are optimized for operation using touch/voice control or via the multifunction steering wheel.

In addition to learnings from the use of BMW operating systems across the global fleet of more than 22 million connected vehicles, Panoramic iDrive development was influenced by numerous studies conducted by the BMW Group’s usability labs involving around 3000 customers, ultimately impacting the user experience’s extended scope for personalization.

 

Operating system

Like the previous Operating System 9, BMW’s new Operating System X is an in-house development and is based on an Android Open Source Project software stack. However, it offers greater update and upgrade capabilities, it is backward-compatible, is said to be ready to accommodate additional functions, and will keep vehicles equipped with the Panoramic iDrive “at the cutting edge of technology over a long period of time.”

“The overall concept of the new BMW Panoramic iDrive with Operating System X has been enabled by a large technological leap forward,” said Stephan Durach, Senior Vice President for Connected Company Development at BMW Group. “It offers intuitive operation, emotionally engaging experiences, and specific personalization. The new BMW iDrive with Operating System X demonstrates the potential of a software-defined vehicle.”

The expanded intelligence of Operating System X makes it possible to combine the Panoramic Vision, optional 3D head-up display, central display, and multifunction steering wheel to better merge physical and digital experiences.

For one example, an incoming call initially brings up a graphic on the Panoramic Vision while a symbol on the relevant steering wheel button that was not previously visible is illuminated in green, indicating the option of taking the call by pressing the button or rejecting it with a swipe on the right-hand side of the steering wheel. For another, for navigation destination entered by touch or voice, shown are route guidance alerts on the 3D head-up display, further information on roads and junctions on the Panoramic Vision, and a whole map overview on the central display for broader-scale orientation.

With Operating System X, personalization extends to the Panoramic Vision displays that can be adapted to personal preferences. In addition, drivers can now also choose their settings for driving attributes such as response and steering characteristics in the My Mode Personal. User pictures can be uploaded as backgrounds for the central display and the colorway of the ambient lighting and user interface design can be adjusted for a more personalized driving experience.

Like before, the BMW intelligent personal assistant responds to the prompt “Hey BMW” or can be called upon by pressing a button on the multifunction steering wheel. However, its capabilities will be taken to a new level for the Neue Klasse through the integration of large language models (LLMs).

The use of this technology is focused initially on navigation, allowing the customer to give more extensive spoken commands using natural language—for example, “Take me to a charging station which is close to a food store.” At technology partner Amazon’s CES 2025 booth, visitors could experience these capabilities using a beta version of an intelligent personal assistant powered by Alexa in a BMW X3.

As with current BMW infotainment systems, the intelligent personal assistant can make suggestions proactively based on user behavior. This expands further with Operating System X, the assistant highlighting driver-assistance systems that are rarely used by the driver.

The system also suggests activating Sport Mode on routes if the driver has previously activated it. If the driver doesn’t respond to or ignores these proactive suggestions several times, the system learns and refrains from making suggestions in the future.

Operating System X continues with the integration of third-party apps, with the ConnectedDrive Store offering more than 60 apps worldwide for the previous Operating System 9. The selection will continue to grow with productivity apps such as the Zoom video conferencing service.