Cars are too customizable at the moment and BMW is by far the biggest offender. There are just too many settings for too many parameters in modern BMWs, especially M cars, that it becomes overwhelming. Not to sound too much like an old man yelling at clouds but what happened to cars that were just set up one way and you, as a driver, got used to it? Well BMW EVs might get even more complicated because CarBuzz unearthed a new BMW patent filing that would allow drivers to fully customize and precisely program an EVs powertrain.
According to this patent filing, the customization is done mostly with two settings: speed curve and acceleration curve. Essentially, drivers can use these settings to customize how fast the car goes or how much torque is applied, based on throttle input, respectively. For example, if a driver wants the throttle pedal to deliver 50 percent torque from just 30 percent throttle, they can do that, making the car feel very touchy. Or vice versa. According to BMW, drivers will be able to tune their EVs to feel more like internal combustion cars.
The two curves would be presented on a graph, with helpful guides to let drives get exactly what they want out of the car. There will also be a few built-in presets for customers to choose from, which would make decision making easier.
BMW is calling this technology the “fun interaction option” and it’s a technology that seems like it would be popular among customers. Since EV powertrains are infinitely adjustable via software, it would be relatively simple for owners to change the feel and drive of their car on the fly, which might be incredibly attractive. However, I also could see some owners being reckless with it and making the powertrain far too twitchy and then ending up in a tree. BMW would likely put some safeguards on there, so as to not allow drivers to make 10 percent throttle equal 100 percent torque output.
Obviously, this is just a patent filing and doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a technology that’s coming to BMWs. Car companies file technology patents just to future proof them all the time and this could be one such example. However, given BMW’s obsession with making its cars more complicated than they have to be, I’m beginning to thing that there’s some actual fire from this patent filing’s smoke. Although, this sounds like a BMW M technology, so we’ll probably have to wait several years for the electric M3 to see it.
[Source: CarBuzz]
