Autocar January 11, 2023

BMW’s i VISION DEE concept car, star of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (p4), previews a radically different next-generation 3 Series due in just two years that bears little to no relation to the executive saloon of the past five decades. In its size, shape and proportions (and, of course, its styling), the next 3 Series will evolve more from its seventh to eighth generation than all previous iterations combined, and set the blueprint for all future BMWs as the first model from the firm’s muchhyped Neue Klasse architecture. Neue Klasse is BMW’s future and will eventually underpin everything from high-volume models to its hottest performance cars. Such architectures are becoming commonplace across the industry, but in a brand as storied and so clearly defined as BMW’s they take on…

“The head-up display unit is capable of projecting information across the full width of the windscreen” Aradical tech-focused future beckons for the BMW 3 Series, as previewed by the new i Vision Dee electric concept car, described by the German marque as the “next level of human-machine interaction”. Due to reach production in 2025, the UK-bound four-door saloon was revealed in concept form at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It is based on BMW’s Neue Klasse platform, an all-new structure that is set to underpin a wide range of future internal-combustion-engined, plug-in hybrid and electricpowered BMW models. The i Vision Dee’s key features include a range of new digital functions, such as a head-up display unit capable of projecting information across the full width of the windscreen – something the…

There must be some poor product marketing exec at BMW who cringes every time a particularly gopping design is signed off or a risky ad campaign gets the go-ahead. Remember that promo video where the old 7 Series repeatedly shouted ‘bullsh*t’ at its tech-heavy iX descendant? That riled the loyalists. Then there was the £15-per-month-for-heatedseats controversy and the launch of an outlandishly styled, heavyweight PHEV SUV as the storied M division’s second bespoke sports car. Certainly, the firm has been making good on designer Domagoj Dukec’s conviction that it’s not BMW’s goal “to please everyone in the world”. But could the Dee concept spark a return to the understated but distinctive and highly competent BMWs from days of yore? It certainly seems a more comprehensible and familiar proposition than some of the…

The all-new Volkswagen ID 7 has been closely previewed by this camouflaged prototype at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The ID 7, which had previously been known as Aero B in concept guise and during development, will be offered initially as a five-door liftback, with an estate model to follow. It is the sixth model to be launched in the ID range and will initially sit alongside the Arteon and Passat, the latter of which will be offered only as an estate in its next generation. In time, it will become VW’s sole offering in Europe’s shrinking D-segment because no further versions of the Arteon and Passat are due once the switch to EVs has been made. “It will launch in two-wheel-drive form followed by a 4WD GTX model” “Globally, the saloon…

THE NEXT-GENERATION Toyota C-HR is primed to take on the likes of the Kia Niro, moving upmarket by adding a plug-in hybrid powertrain to its ranks – and new images appear to show an electric variant is also on the cards. Due on sale by 2024, the Mk2 C-HR will be a close sibling to the new Toyota Prius. It will be underpinned by the same TNGA platform and offered with the same mix of parallel-hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains. The C-HR may also gain a battery-electric variant, placing it in direct competition with the triple-powertrain Niro line-up. Autocar’s spy photographer said this test car is a pure-EV proposition, suggesting Toyota’s Small SU EV concept from 2021 – itself almost identical to the more recent C-HR concept (pictured, right) – is nearing…

The extraordinary new Inception concept “heralds a new era” for future Peugeot electric cars, which will make dramatic technological leaps and feature radically different designs from the company’s current offering. Revealed at CES in Las Vegas – unusually for Peugeot, which left the US market in 1991 – the Inception is the first concept from recently appointed design boss Matthias Hossann and provides a mission statement for the brand’s future production vehicles. The firm will launch five new EVs in the next two years and go allelectric by 2030 in Europe. Hossann told Autocar recently that upcoming Peugeot cars will take the lead from the new 408 saloon-SUV in “challenging conventional silhouettes”. Certainly, the Inception bears no obvious relation to anything in the current Peugeot stable. Sitting low to the ground (its roof…