Yes, there were 7 Malaysians who booked this sexy grand tourer without even test driving it. Not even having touch it or sit in it and they all paid to have one at launch date. This is the power of M!
The presentation of the new BMW 8-Series Coupe adds a brand new chapter to the Bavarian premium carmaker’s long history of sensational sports cars – and gets its current model offensive in the luxury segment off to a particularly dynamic start. The BMW 8-Series Coupe is a dream car boasting outstanding performance, emotion-stirring design, state-of-the-art luxury and exceptionally advanced equipment features when it comes to display and control technology, driver assistance and connectivity.
Driver assistance systems
A particularly wide variety of standard and optionally available driver assistance systems marks out the new BMW 8-Series Coupe as an extremely advanced model within its segment. The systems really come into their own when driving longer distances by relieving the strain on the driver in monotonous situations, such as traffic jams or slow-moving traffic. They additionally enhance comfort and safety both in urban traffic and on longer trips by providing targeted assistance in complex traffic situations. The driver assistance systems process camera images as well as the data gathered by ultrasonic and radar sensors to monitor the vehicle’s surroundings, to warn of potential hazards and to minimise the risk of an accident with corrective braking or steering inputs. These integral features of the BMW Personal Co-Pilot represent the latest advances on the road to automated driving.
The BMW 8-Series Coupe is equipped as standard with Cruise Control with braking function as well as Collision and Pedestrian Warning with City Braking function, the latest version of which also alerts the driver when a cyclist is detected. Depending on the situation, the system can bring the vehicle to a halt to either avoid a collision or minimise its consequences.
The BMW 8-Series Coupe can also be optionally equipped with Active Cruise Control with Stop & Go function. It can be used at speeds up to 210 km/h (130 mph) and maintains the desired speed while taking not only the traffic situation into account, but also the selected distance to vehicles in front. If required, the system is able to brake the car to a stop then pull away again automatically after being stationary for up to 30 seconds, meaning greater comfort in stop-start traffic. Camera images and data from a front radar system are used for distance control. The speed limits detected by the Speed Limit Info traffic sign recognition system including No Passing Info display can be incorporated into the Active Cruise Control’s automatic regulation of the speed with an adjustment of up to 15 km/h (9 mph). The distance information also appears in the standard Head-Up Display. This function helps the driver to keep at a predetermined distance from the vehicle ahead when cruise and distance control are not activated. A warning signal projected onto the windscreen indicates that the gap has fallen below the set distance.
Driving Assistant Professional: the complete package for comfortable and safe driving
The optional Driving Assistant Professional offers particularly comprehensive assistance for comfortable and safe driving. In addition to Active Cruise Control with Stop & Go function, this complete package also includes the Steering and lane control assistant. To allow convenient activation of the two systems, the BMW 8-Series Coupe is fitted with a special button on the standard multifunction steering wheel for switching on the Active Cruise Control and Steering and lane control assistant simultaneously. A mode button can be pressed to switch to using Active Cruise Control on its own.
Another component of the Driving Assistant Professional is the Lane Keeping Assistant with active side collision protection. This comprises the Lane Departure Warning and Lane Change Warning systems, which are active in a speed range from 70 to 210 km/h (44 – 130 mph) and 20 km/h (12 mph) up to top speed respectively and help the driver guide the vehicle back onto the correct path with an active turn of the steering. Besides emitting visual warning signals and causing the steering wheel to vibrate, active side collision protection also uses active steering intervention to help avoid a collision. The Driving Assistant Professional furthermore includes the evasion aid, which now also reacts to pedestrians, along with the Rear collision warning, Priority warning and Wrong-way warning systems. The Crossing traffic warning – which reduces the danger of a collision when manoeuvring forwards towards roads that are obstructed from the driver’s view – now also includes brake intervention.
Perfect for concentrating on the road ahead: the latest-generation Head-Up Display
The BMW Head-Up Display, which comes as standard in the new BMW 8-Series Coupe and projects relevant driving information onto the windscreen in the form of graphics, is another factor in the intensely focused driving experience. The latest generation of the system features a projection area that has been enlarged by a further 16 per cent, optimised graphics and additional content. The BMW Head-Up Display projects information directly into the driver’s field of vision where it can be assimilated without any need for them to divert their eyes from the road. This includes details of vehicle speed, speed limits and overtaking restrictions, Check Control messages, status indicators and warnings from the assistance systems, detailed route guidance and turn instructions, as well as telephone and entertainment lists. When driving with the Driving Experience Control switch in SPORT or SPORT+ mode, the Head-Up Display also indicates engine speed. Plus, there is a digital Optimum Shift Indicator as an aid for the sports-minded driver in the new BMW 8-Series Coupe.
Another item on the list of optional extras is the BMW Night Vision system comprising pedestrian and animal detection as well as a marker light. It relays a real-time video image to the Control Display showing persons, larger animals and other heat-emitting objects. Any objects detected are additionally illuminated using the headlights’ marker light function.
Easier parking and manoeuvring
Drivers of the new BMW 8-Series Coupe also receive effective assistance when parking and manoeuvring. The active Park Distance Control (PDC) with sensors at the front and rear is standard and provides visual and acoustic warnings to avoid colliding with obstacles at the sides or rear of the vehicle. The optional Parking Assistant is able to automatically select suitable parallel parking spaces and manoeuvre into them. The spaces are identified by ultrasonic sensors as the vehicle drives past. Once it has been activated by simply pressing a button on the centre console, the system takes care of controlling the accelerator, brakes and steering as well as changing gear. In addition to this, the system can now be used for automatically manoeuvring out of parallel parking spaces too. In order to do this, the driver has to first specify in which direction the parking space is to be exited by switching on the indicators on that side. By reversing and steering, the system then manoeuvres the vehicle into a position from which the driver can leave the parking space with the steering turned to the given angle.
The Parking Assistant’s range of functions also includes the Reversing Assistant, which helps the driver when exiting parking spaces and manoeuvring within a confined space. The system assumes the task of steering when backing up by tracing the vehicle’s last forward movements in reverse. All the driver has to do is operate the accelerator and brake pedals and monitor the vehicle’s surroundings. A distance of up to 50 metres can be covered in this way at speeds of up to 9 km/h (5.5 mph). The system is deactivated if either of these values is exceeded.
The optional rear-view camera is designed to afford drivers a clear all-round view, as are many of the functions included with the optional extra Parking Assistant Plus. With the help of the Top View, Panorama View and 3D View functions, a 360-degree image of the vehicle and its surroundings is shown on the Control Display from different perspectives. The Remote 3D View function additionally gives drivers the ability to call up a three-dimensional live image of their vehicle and its immediate vicinity on their smartphone.
Display and control system, BMW Connected and ConnectedDrive
The BMW 8-Series Coupe comes as standard with the BMW Live Cockpit Professional, which combines a new display and control concept and maximum connectivity into a superb all-round package. The latest-generation display and control concept consists of a high-resolution instrument cluster behind the steering wheel with a screen diagonal of 12.3 inches and a 10.25-inch Control Display.
The display and control concept’s most recent incarnation running the new BMW Operating System 7.0 has a cutting-edge, totally digital design and is geared even more closely to the driver’s personal needs with the aim of optimising attention control. The clear presentation and structuring are designed to always provide drivers with the appropriate information at the right time, further helped by the customisable and personalised displays. The redesigned graphics display in the instrument cluster now leaves enough room for an excerpt from the navigation map, for instance. The presentation of the main menu on the Control Display can be adapted to the driver’s personal requirements by configuring up to ten pages, each showing two to four tiles with live content. To further enhance the sporty driving experience, information such as the lateral acceleration during high-speed cornering can be displayed. The intuitive multimodal interaction between driver and vehicle has also undergone further improvement and offers a choice of the Control Display’s touchscreen, the proven iDrive Touch Controller, voice control, the standard BMW gesture control or the controls on the steering wheel, depending on the situation.
Further components of the BMW Live Cockpit Professional include an adaptive navigation system, a hard-drive-based multimedia system with 20 GB of memory, two USB ports (type A and type C), plus Bluetooth and WiFi interfaces. The driver can be automatically detected and personal settings activated by using the vehicle key or the BMW Digital Key as well as by selecting a user in the Control Display and entering the correct PIN.
Drivers can benefit to the full from the car’s intelligent connectivity capabilities thanks to its built-in SIM card and the unlimited data volume. Not only does this provide access to vehicle apps such as news, weather, office and online search, it also allows customers to use Intelligent Emergency Call for automatically summoning swift assistance in an emergency and receive regular updates for the navigation system’s maps.
The Connected Package Professional comprising a selection of digital services is also now available. This will make it easier for customers to select highly appealing digital services for their car, either when ordering the new BMW 8-Series Coupe or at a later date. The Connected Package Professional includes Remote Services, Concierge Services as well as Real Time Traffic Information. The various digital services can continue to be booked individually and retrospectively by visiting the ConnectedDrive Store.
BMW Connected: digital services for individual mobility
BMW Connected is the digital and personal mobility assistant for BMW drivers. Intelligent connectivity helps them to reach their destination easily and with minimal stress – and not only when they are in their car. BMW Connected is an all-embracing concept that is designed to seamlessly connect the driver and their smartphone with the vehicle.
At the heart of it all is the Open Mobility Cloud, which enables the personal mobility assistant to interface the car with the customer’s digital devices. These include the iPhone and Apple Watch, smartphones and smartwatches running the Android operating system, as well as Alexa-compatible smart devices and Google Home. For instance, the BMW Connected App can import appointments and addresses from the customer’s calendar entries straight into the navigation system to start route guidance. The system furthermore computes the optimum departure time based on real-time traffic information and notifies the driver with a message on their smartphone. As the vehicle is also linked up via the Open Mobility Cloud, it is able to access the calculated route directly when the navigation system starts up. In addition to all this, BMW Connected also automatically stores places that are driven to regularly and personal mobility patterns.
The latest in key technology: the BMW Digital Key
The Digital Key employs Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to allow the new BMW 8-Series Coupe to be locked and unlocked from a smartphone too, dispensing with the need for a conventional car key. The smartphone simply has to be held up to the door handle to open the vehicle and, once inside, the engine can be started as soon as the phone has been placed in the Wireless Charging or smartphone tray.
Available via the BMW Connected App, the Digital Key also offers unrivalled flexibility, as the driver can share it with up to five other people. The BMW Digital Key will initially be available for selected NFC-capable smartphones when it is launched.
Always up to date thanks to Remote Software Upgrade.
The Remote Software Upgrade feature keeps the vehicle right up to date with the latest software. All updates can be loaded over the air, as has been customary for smartphones for some time now. The upgrades can be loaded onto the smartphone via the BMW Connected App when connected to the domestic WiFi network or also imported directly via the BMW’s built-in SIM card, which is done automatically for important vehicle upgrades. This saves customers the trouble of paying a visit to their BMW Service Partner for updates. The Remote Software Upgrade facility therefore maximises flexibility while keeping the vehicle permanently in tune with the latest technological developments.
