I think BMW would be getting a lot more respect from the design press (and potential buyers) if they had offered a few of the same design features they had in the prototype. Most notably those clear door panels. As it is, the production model design they ended up with is somewhat boring. The same with the rear tail lights. The originals looked like they were hanging in mid air. But for some reason even though the production model still has a glass exterior surface they felt the need to cover the inside with a black coating. If security was a concern it seems like it would have been fairly easy to design an additional screen. Heck, I would have paid a premium for all of those features just to have that cool cutting edge design. I don't think BMW will have trouble with this car because they pushed the design too far, I think they'll have trouble because they took the guts out of the original design.
Why did Toyota beat Honda in the hybrid wars even though Honda beat them to market? Because Honda tried to sell a hybrid drive inside a car that looked like every other. Now Honda has redesigned their Prius competitor to have a more futuristic look similar to the Prius because their hybrid just wasn't selling.
Go ahead and sell the tamer version BMW, but please bring back some of the cutting edge design featues as options so you can reclaim some of the design edginess of the original. Carbon Fiber doesn't have a tremendous amount of pizzazz you can see from the outside. That's why I think styling needs to play a bigger part in mediating the high-tech story of the i3.
Why did Toyota beat Honda in the hybrid wars even though Honda beat them to market? Because Honda tried to sell a hybrid drive inside a car that looked like every other. Now Honda has redesigned their Prius competitor to have a more futuristic look similar to the Prius because their hybrid just wasn't selling.
Go ahead and sell the tamer version BMW, but please bring back some of the cutting edge design featues as options so you can reclaim some of the design edginess of the original. Carbon Fiber doesn't have a tremendous amount of pizzazz you can see from the outside. That's why I think styling needs to play a bigger part in mediating the high-tech story of the i3.