The 2019 Detroit Motor Show will be the last one to be held in January. Starting in 2020, it will permanently shift to June. The reason for the change is that the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las-Vegas also takes place on the same month. You would think an all-around electronics fair wouldn’t be a major event in the automotive world; you would be seriously mistaken.
Dozens of car manufacturers will be attending the CES early next year, including BMW, which has promised to bring along its innovative Vision iNext Concept. The company will actually go as far as to deploy a mixed-reality environment at its booth, enabling all visitors to have a virtual test drive of the new all-electric vehicle.
By putting on VR goggles, visitors will first be able to experience the car on the road. The self-driving system will take over after a while and invite the drivers to switch attention to other things, such as shopping online or making Skype calls.
The BMW Vision iNext Concept is the German company’s best guess at the all-electric car of the future. Most of its controls and interface parts are hidden from view when not needed.
Photo: BMW