One of my major complaints in life is that the fancy touch screens on modern cars are often just a tiny little bit out of reach for me, making their use vaguely inconvenient. It’s not very hard but BMW understands the difficulties this poses on many drivers all the same and will keep the iDrive rotary controller in some of its larger vehicles.
The knob, placed between the front seats and just ahead of where a driver’s arm would naturally rest, made its triumphant return to the new 7-Series after having been omitted from the also quite new 2-Series Active Tourer. According to BMW’s Stefan Frick, who spoke with Auto Express, the difference comes down to ergonomics.
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“You have to think about the architecture of the car and the ergonomics. If the screen is not close enough it makes no sense [to remove the rotary controller], he said. “In the 2 Series [Active Tourer] it’s a different architecture, and the screen is pretty close — it’s quite convenient to control with touch.”
Although the wider industry has largely moved away from such low-mounted controllers, preferring instead the simple (and cheaper) design aesthetic of only using a touchscreen, BMW has not given up entirely on the iDrive dial. Along with the ergonomics, there’s a bit of tradition and experience inspiring that decision, according to Frick: “We still stick with the iDrive controller, especially with this model [the 7-Series]. We have a 20-year history of iDrive controller.”