But I wonder how anyone could wash it? xD

However. Aesthetically (that’s a stretch.. let’s call it “Structurally…”) this is an exploration of BMW’s new design concept of a car having a “skin” that’s layered on top of the actual structural (load-bearing) and mechanical elements, such that you have an aesthetic/aerodynamic layer and the mechanical/structural layer revealed beneath it. This is especially evident on the Vision, but also on the M1 Homage, and in another direction the Gina.

The actual benefits of all of the movable plates is questionable and just an exercise (and a wasteful one, as Lee says) in exploring a single solution for several converging needs/opportunities. Solar power is a little goofy, but the idea of active aerodynamics is a very interesting one. You could not just var downforce, but have profound effects on the control and balance of the car in many ways (with enough speed). Of course, this is totally impractical with so many moving parts. It would also totally suck trying to detail this thing.

Also, note that the Aerospace industry experimented with tiny moving fish-scales on the wings of plane to substantially reduce turbulence and drag. This is actually a big deal, but the downside is the same of having far too many parts to manufacture and maintain. They also experimented with thousands of tiny holes to suck air into the plane through, creating a supersmooth cavity that reduced drag considerably. Neat, huh?

I’ll give her credit for the whole “outside the box” thing, but mechanically and aesthetically speaking I think it’s pretty horrid.

Let’s put aside the aesthetics for a moment, since it’s very much eye-of-the-beholder. How many electric actuators does that thing use? Couple thousand little motors and switches to operate those panels? When we, as a society, figure out a way to make the comparably few we have in cars currently function reliably I’d consider possibly signing off on making such a monstrous electronic clusterf***. Until that point, it will be a maintenance nightmare.

I understand the whole “look at what we could do” technological marvel thing. Cool. That’s freakin’ sweet that you can make a car look like Sonic The Hedgehog. Kudos. There comes a point in time, though, where you waste too many resources daydreaming about making an armadillo with 4 wheels when you could allocate those resources into coming up with implementable solutions for legitimate issues facing the automotive community now. And no, not having a vehicle that looks like a Stegosaurus isn’t one of those legitimate issues.