BMW has made a weird, ultra-recyclable city car

Wednesday, 8 September 2021

The BMW i Vision Circular concept is totally recyclable, including the battery.

BMW isn’t letting Mercedes and Volkswagen have all the fun at the Munich Motor Show. It turned up with a few models we’ve already seen, like the iX SUV and i4 sedan, but it also brought this, a totally recyclable small electric hatchback.

Called the i Vision Circular, the weird little hatchback shows a new take on BMWs design language, with a large kidney grille stretching horizontally compared to the vertical slabs seen on the 4 Series and M3/M4.

Each kidney is a digital surface, which can be used to display messages as well as project light onto the road. BMW says that by making the grille digital, “geometric variations in lights and bumpers could be made redundant, helping to reduce the quantity of materials and tools required.”

The BMW i Vision Circular’s ‘grille’ is a pair of ‘digital surfaces’ that can project light onto the road.

The windscreen and roof are joined into a single piece of glass – don’t even think about the cost of repairing a nasty stone chip – which extends the entire length of the vehicle.

**READ MORE:

The interior was created using 3D printing and recycled plastic, although it does look a bit like your nana’s lounge.

* Maybach goes electric with EQS SUV while Mercedes details EQB

* Mercedes-Benz reveals first AMG EV and an electric G-Wagen

The wheels and rear end mimic the straked light design from the front.

* Road test review: Mazda MX-30

* Motor show touts green credentials amid climate-change protests

BMW mimicked the design of the grille in the wheels with lots of slim spokes, while the rear end also gets the straked light design in a full-width LED bar.

Moving inside, the i Vision Circular gets even weirder. BMW says it uses “new joining techniques” like 3D printing to avoid materials like glue in the cabin, evident in the dash, which also gets embedded crystal materials. The steering wheel was also 3D printed using a special wood powder.

BMW chose to colour the interior in a mint/lavender combination, which feels a tad nana-ish. Not helping things are the seats, which have been intentionally designed to look like furniture.

They are made from recycled plastic, which is good, and the omission of a centre console means rear legroom is improved.

The solid-state battery is also 100 per cent recyclable and manufactured almost entirely using materials sourced from the recycling loop.

According to BMW, it will achieve a much higher energy density with significantly reduced use of the most valuable resources.

While the i Vision Circular won’t be produced any time soon, BMW did say it will use some of these recycling techniques on future models.