When BMW announced their ground-breaking concept car, Vision iNext, expectations were big. After all, BMW circled the world with it, however, there was very few things left too see for general public. But the German company did not forget about them, they have just let them wait for a while. Two months in fact. But the time has come and we can finally see, what the buzz was all about, as the iNext is BMW’s main attraction on this year’s Los Angeles car show.

The looks of the car are quite familiar though as it reminds us on current i3 quite a lot. It is however (still) a concept, which will help BMW with presenting their four ‘pillars’ for the future: autonomous drive, connectivity, electrification and services. In fact, BMW says, that autonomous drive is going to bring new ways of planning and aspects of traveling.

Autonomous, but not always

Since the car can also be considered as an autonomous vehicle – although, driver can take control of it if feeling to do so – iNext has been designed as a sort of boutique, a place to spend some free time in. How driver is going to do it is totally up to him. In order to make the interior as comfortable as possible, BMW designers has equipped it with different materials, such as special fabric (different in front and back) and wood, all spiced up with calming colors: pink, brown, beige and bronze.

The most interesting piece of the concept however is the way everything inside is controlled. Instead of putting numerous touch-screens inside the cockpit, designers have developed touch-sensitive wood and fabric, that can be used in the same manner. It is a prototype technology called Shy-tech that has not yet been seen in any car so far, but we sure hope it is going to reach production.