Your wallet can’t really take it and you can’t use an extra stop at the gas pump in terms of time, but the voice in your head keeps shouting: ‘Do it, do it!’. So you hit the sport mode, downshift a gear and do a short sprint. The question is: will you ever do the same with an electric car?
Various car brands are already trying to provoke some extra intermediate sprints by, for example, emitting engine noise through the speakers. But now BMW is going one step further with a new patent. The brand is working on a system where the driver can set via the on-board computer how the electric motor reacts to the pedal, for example to imitate a petrol engine.
How does the system work with BMW driving modes?
BMW envisions some kind of equalizer, but for the engine instead of the audio. You see a kind of printout of a roller bench in front of you, where you can drag your finger to adjust it. You can, for example, set how the car reacts at different speeds. On the highway it will react less sharply, just like a petrol car that is low in the revs. But because it is an EV, you can also do it the other way around.
Create an artificial turbo hole
You can also indicate the course of the acceleration. If you want to pretend you’re driving a car with a big turbo, let it start slowly at the bottom and then take off like crazy. Or look up a roller bank printout of a six-in-line and copy it in the on-board computer. The possibilities are endless.
You can use the function to make your electric motor behave like a petrol engine, but there are also more practical applications. For example, if someone is driving very restlessly, you can turn back the response a bit to keep the peace in the car. Because it is a patent, the question is whether the function will actually become reality. So wait a little longer.
