Immersive New BMW Panoramic iDrive Suite Revealed At CES 2025

It has been 24 years since German premium automaker BMW revealed the first iteration of its iDrive infotainment suite. Over the years, the tech has evolved and matured, becoming bigger in size, richer in features and function and, critically, becoming more advanced with each evolution too.

Now, the tech has taken a significant new step forward. Revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show 2025 (CES 2025) in Las Vegas this week is the newest version of the tech called Panoramic iDrive. Presenting the tech on stage for BMW at CES 2025 were comedians Tim Meadows and Ken Jeong.

Also called 'Panoramic Vision' by BMW, the new Panoramic iDrive display suite ditches a traditional instrument panel for a dedicated display panel spanning from pillar-to-pillar on the windscreen.

Through which, BMW has ditched the instrument cluster altogether for a whole new display approach. Instead, the Bavarian marque has transformed the windscreen into a massive and immersive display panel, and it chose to place a rich trove of information directly into the driver’s line of sight.

Dubbed as ‘Panoramic Vison’ by BMW, this is set to be standard kit in upcoming Neue Klasse models.

The absence of a ‘traditional’ instrument panel sees BMW projecting elements onto a single screen at the base of the windscreen, and this panel spans across the entire length too – from pillar to pillar. Effectively, this is similar to a heads-up display (HUD), only much larger, wider and more immersive.

Besides the panel, there's a parallelogram-shaped central touchscreen powered by BMW's new Android-based "Operating System X" present as well.

Notably, the central display is a parallelogram-shaped touchscreen, and the Bavarian marque new Android-based “Operating System X” manages it all on the back-end. According to BMW, said new OS is the key to what it calls “shy tech”.

The latter is evident in the steering wheel which, despite appearing busy and cluttered, it actually sees its built-in functions illuminated only when they’re actually available. For instance, when receiving a call, the buttons to accept and reject will appear, switching off entirely otherwise.

Clearly, besides the richer display and the promise of seemingly easier access, this move at getting controls and displays primed directly into the driver’s sight-line is critical towards reducing distractions and increasing situational awareness.

By displaying this trove of information directly into the driver's line of sight, the tech promises to reduce distractions and heighten situational awareness for drivers.

However, we’ll also agree that perhaps more physical buttons would be useful too, especially for basic functions like climate control adjustment, as well as door locking and unlocking.

With the first of the Neue Klasse models hitting production later this year, we can expect to see this new display tech featured in said offering when it hit the market sometime later this year too.