Police cars of the future from BMW
BMW’s US design house imagines the police cars of the year 2025
By Shahzad Sheikh
At the LA Autoshow at the end of this month design teams from the major manufacturers will be competing in a creative competition to come up with the most exciting visions for future concepts. This year the theme was the ultimate 2025 highway patrol vehicle.
Here’s BMW’s entries, based on a criteria including incorporation of advanced technology, speed and agility and emissions and environment.
The BMW team came up with clean-sheet concepts and insist that its police car has ‘no links to BMW´s future design strategy’.
The BMW Group DesignworksUSA team began the challenge by selecting Los Angeles as the region to create a 2025 scenario. Being aware that there will be more traffic, faster vehicles, and vehicles with alternative drive trains the design team explored how a patrol team functioned today and in the future and determined that teamwork and accessibility were the two key elements to a successful patrol effort.
For teamwork, the design team was inspired by the partnership between a patrol officer and their canine. The clogged highways today and in the future inspired the design team to focus on a solution to increase accessibility.
The design of the ePatrol Vision centers on a modular structure and drone technology that enhanced both teamwork and accessibility.
The main structure can deploy three drones. The top drone sits above the main structure and is a flying drone, while the other two are one wheel vehicles attached to the rear. In the case of a pursuit during heavy traffic areas, the patrol officer sitting in the two passenger main structure can deploy either the flying drone or one of the single wheel drones to chase the suspect and report back data to the main structure.
When all drones are deployed, the main structure can continue to function. All drones have added protection benefits in that they can send an impulse to another vehicle and disable it. Throughout the exterior design, the team strived to create a powerful stance with an aerodynamic aesthetic and flowing lines.
The interior design was inspired by a woven structure made of aluminum wire inside carbon fibre and polymer resin. The seats form a significant connection between driver and architecture.
From a manufacturing standpoint, the 3D woven carbon fibre structure has the advantage that tooling is not required. All interfaces within the interior are touch screen.
For greater protection to the patrol officers, windows are not included in the vehicle. The windshield is replaced with a large screen that on the exterior can communicate critical information such as accidents or route information to other drivers. On the interior, the large screen acts as a monitor on which data from the drones can be displayed.
Wow these are gorgeous cop cars. I will demand to be arrested just so I can take a ride in one!