Everyone always has something to say about BMW. 

The Bavarian automaker has long had a knack for setting the benchmarks with cars like the 3 Series and X5, but when the vehicles change with the times, BMW’s superfans don’t hold their tongues. 

“The old cars were better.”

“That new grille is just too much.”

“I’ll never pay for subscription features in a car.” 

Now, at CES 2023, a new BMW concept asks: what if the car had something to say as well? And if a car could talk, how would it interact with its user?

This is the BMW i Vision Dee, which stands for “Digital Emotional Experience.” It’s one of BMW’s most radical — yet, in some ways, plausible — concept cars in years. It’s a minimalist electric performance sedan that leans hard into digital features like augmented reality and voice-driven virtual assistants. Think the metaverse or Amazon Alexa but in sport sedan form. The concept also offers the ability to create a driver avatar profile, which can even be projected onto the side window. 

More than that, the i Vision Dee’s color-shifting grille is like a “face” with its own expressions on top of the virtual voice. This is a BMW that talks back and may even have hot takes of its own. “My father was an E30,” is one thing the car said to me at a recent tech demonstration, and early social media promos for the concept evoked the ‘80s talking car action show Knight Rider. 

“The headlights and the closed BMW kidney grille also form a common phygital (fusion of physical and digital) icon on a uniform surface, allowing the vehicle to produce different facial expressions,” the automaker said in a news release. “This means the BMW i Vision Dee can talk to people and, at the same time, express moods such as joy, astonishment or approval visually.” 

Like the i Vision Circular from 2021, the i Vision Dee is just a concept car, meant to preview potentially forthcoming designs and technologies that could make their way onto dealer lots eventually. At the same time, the design itself feels like something that could preview a future electric 3 Series or i4 of some sort. 

Visually, the i Vision Dee almost looks like a cross between a Tesla Model 3 and one of BMW’s classic sport sedans, like a 2002 or an E30. The kidney grille sweeps across almost the entire front of the concept and a rear light bar does the same across the trunk. The white, almost featureless body is a stark contrast to the fussy designs of many current BMWs, while still keeping signature features like the “Hofmeister kink” of the rear windows. 

While BMW won’t directly confirm that this design is intended for production, it’s fairly safe to assume it will influence future cars. BMW’s concepts have a way of turning into reality—see the i8 supercar and i3 city car from the past decade. BMW even calls this “another milestone on the road” to Neue Klasse, BMW’s upcoming EV-specific car platform. That setup is named for the “New Class” of sport sedans and coupes that defined BMW’s image in the 1960s and ‘70s. 

While current BMWs tend to be built to offer a mix of internal combustion, hybrid, or EV power — the electric i4 and ICE-powered 4 Series Gran Coupe are essentially the same vehicle, for example — the next round of models is designed from the ground up to be electric for better range and better battery packaging. 

BMW says the i Vision Dee also represents a significant evolution of the E Ink color-shifting technology that debuted at last year’s CES and, as a result, can transform its exterior into 32 different colors — and not just one color, either. The concept’s body is divided into 240 E Ink segments, each of which can be controlled individually, BMW says. It’s the first time E Ink is used on the entire outside of a car, and BMW has said the technology could be close to commercialization at the consumer level. 

Refreshingly, the i Vision Dee is a three-box sedan, not another blob-like crossover SUV concept. That in and of itself is a bold move from BMW and one that’s at odds with current trends; sedan sales have been on the decline for years as the global market has shifted toward crossovers and trucks. 

For BMW, it’s evidence that the sport sedan is still important to the company’s image and bottom line, said BMW design boss Domagoj Dukec at a press preview in Germany last year. 

“We want to show our customers, if the world is changing, we will adapt, but certainly we will always be familiar,” Dukec said. “Everybody who’s working within my team, from different cultures and different generations, they love the brand and they know their history. They don’t want that to go away.” 

Dukec added, “It’s also BMW. When you talk about the core product… it’s the 3 and 5 Series.”