found this....was quite an interesting read about iDrive and using the new 7 series:
Brain strain
By Joshua Dowling
The Sydney Morning Herald
Friday May 10 2002
The new BMW 7 Series is a technological showcase on wheels, a $200,000 limousine so sophisticated that it virtually requires owners to learn to drive again. It is almost impossible to enter, start or move it without tuition.
BMW sales staff give prospective buyers a 20-minute rundown before a test drive; those who sign on the line get a one-hour demonstration before they leave the dealership – and are invited back a week later for more detailed instructions. BMW even programs their favourite radio stations before they collect the car.
Of the 11 sales staff in BMW of Sydney, three attended a two-day course in Melbourne to qualify to sell the 7 Series. There is a six-day course for technicians.
There are three owner's manuals: a detailed guide, a supplementary guide and a fold-out quick guide.
The reason? BMW has effectively reinvented in-car ergonomics with a system it calls i-Drive. There is no conventional gear lever (it's mounted on the steering column) and almost all other controls are operated by a big silver dial on the centre console.
The key is a plastic card that slides into an ignition port. The driver presses a button to start and stop the car. The handbrake is electronic.
It sounds simple but it isn't. For example, changing the bass and treble settings on the audio system is a six-step procedure. In a car with conventional dials, this takes seconds.
This car has the computing power of nearly 70 PCs, driving everything from the engine to the air-conditioning. The front seats each have 19 electric motors for adjustment and heating/cooling.
But does the technology make it any easier to drive? In Drive's experience, emphatically no.
The system appears to have been designed with Silicon Valley in mind – by German engineers working in a static studio. Their handiwork is used here at up to 110kmh and on home-market autobahns at more than double that speed.
Drive lived with the car for just over a week and asked about 30 people aged from 13 to 78 to see if they could start it. All but two gave up. Most discovered that even basic functions are not intuitive.
Among those who failed to start it were the RTA's manager of driver training, Ron Chisholm, and the NSW president of the Australian Driver Trainers' Association, Jeff McDougall.
Motorists whom BMW might consider potential buyers included a 58-year-old North Shore man who has owned BMWs since 1975 and a 57-year-old Mercedes E Class owner.
With the benefit of the key already in the ignition, Geoff Brabham – racing champion, son of Sir Jack and a BMW driver-trainer – moved a 7 Series forward but admitted defeat when it came to reversing it.
Drive phoned the University of Sydney and asked for a genius. The university nominated celebrity scientist Dr Karl Kruszelnicki who, by his own admission, is not a genius but an expert on ergonomics, among other things scientific.
He started the car – after taking two minutes to find the keyhole, a further three minutes to fire the engine into life and four-and-a-half minutes to find the gear lever. It took Dr Karl another seven minutes to operate the radio.
"Machines are supposed to be our servants, not the other way around," he said. "Everything used by humans should be intuitive and this is not. I don't think it will necessarily cause accidents but it should not be this difficult.
"It's beautifully engineered, the functionality is good but the usability sucks."
The only other person to bring the car to life was Gary Walker, a prestige car dealer for 27 years. It took him two minutes to start the car and another two to operate the radio.
We took the car to 10 hotels to see whether it passed the valet parking test. None of the valets could drive it without instruction. Two were sharp enough to ask if there was anything they should know about the car, two sought help from colleagues and the remainder, after fruitless efforts, eventually asked us for assistance.
Our 30 guinea pigs, in their efforts to start the BMW, inadvertently popped the boot, opened the glovebox, activated the wipers and, incredibly, neglected to use the manuals. More than half vented their frustration with unseemly words.
Most people gave up after six to 10 minutes. Karl Kruszelnicki jnr, 13, whipped through each function in about 15 seconds, easily figuring out the toggles, buttons and dials – but could not start the car because he could not reach the pedals.
Robert McDonald, the NRMA's industry research manager, said: "I think it's unnecessarily complicated. The engineering is extremely impressive but I wonder about the average buyer's ability to quickly adapt to the ergonomics.
"There are so many functions that are different compared to other cars. That would be my concern from a distraction point of view."
Expert driver trainer McDougall agreed. "People get cranky learning new mobile phones; this is more complicated again. I think this is the kind of car a gadgety person would love to own but they must learn how to use the functions before they drive off."
Danny Hanlan, the 7 Series sales manager at BMW of Sydney, also compared the car to a new mobile phone, but said "it can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be".
"People hate change and automatically assume technology is difficult but once they're used to it, it's fine," he added.
Owners, he said, "are not going to hand the keys to their $200,000 car to just anyone".
Questions remain, however. What happens in an emergency or if the car needs to be moved after a crash?
As with all new cars, the 7 Series was inspected by the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau in Canberra and deemed to meet Australian Design Rule requirements.
The RTA's Ron Chisholm thought the new buyer briefing was essential and should also apply when the car was resold. "We would hope that commonsense prevailed and BMW [had] a program that ensures future buyers are shown how to operate the car. There is certainly the need for close supervision if someone other than the owner was driving the car."
BMW says most 7 Series are traded in at dealerships rather than sold privately, so the car will most likely be under BMW's supervision for the next five years.
Of the 13 cars sold by BMW of Sydney so far this year, three were bought by people in their 30s, four in the 40s and the rest are over 50.
Bill, 41, a lawyer, traded his BMW 540i for a new 7 Series in March and has clocked up 2000km. "I'm fairly intuitive when it comes to gadgets," he told Drive, "so I didn't have a problem with it. After a while I found it easier to operate than the 540i controls.
"Of course people are going to find it difficult if you don't show them how it works. It's like when they invented the car, people were looking where to hitch the horse ... it's a complete generational change."
Adam, 32, a property investor who has owned his 7 Series for three weeks, said "it didn't take as long as I thought" to become familiar with the technology.
"I like gadgets and I'm pretty technically minded. I just think when you jump in the deep end it comes to you fairly easily. It took me a week [for] the basic functions and about three weeks for the full functions."
Both owners had to explain to their car detailers how to operate the 7 Series. Adam's, having since washed a couple of others, "is on top of it now".
What happens when the car breaks down? Drive found out last Friday when a warning chime went off and a symbol of the car flashed on the central screen. There was, however, not a clue as to what the fault was. We stopped the car, locked and unlocked it but the chime continued.
We weren't stranded but to be on the safe side we rang BMW's 24-hour servicemobile. Without a diagnostics unit the technician could not identify the fault but got us moving again by disconnecting the battery for a couple of minutes then reconnecting it to restart the car's computer, in effect, "rebooting" it. That's technology for you.
Beam down
The BMW i-Drive system is coming to a car near you. The new mid-size 5 Series is expected to have a second-generation i-Drive system that is said to be more intuitive and less complicated.
SIMs mettle
Some 7 Series buyers have had to switch to SIM cards that are compatible with the BMW's mobile phone system. The car accepts 3.5-volt SIM cards only – but two-thirds of the 5.7-million SIMs distributed by Telstra in Australia are 5V. The 3.5V cards were introduced 18 months ago.
Seven up
Regardless of the controversy over the car's styling, BMW says sales of the new 7 Series are up compared with the previous model immediately after launch – by 20 percent in the US, 11 percent in Australia and 5 percent worldwide.
Drain cell
BMW Australia printed out a 25-page report on why the 7 Series Drive tested sounded the warning chime. The car had spent two days in the photographer's studio (from which other cars have emerged unaffected) but its computer, monitoring every time a door was opened or a light turned on, drained the battery to 56 percent of its charge capacity. BMW will now provide a technician and a power-pack for media photography of the 7 Series.
the Australian one is interesting in that they dont even discuss driving the car.
the NYT article is mostly on point. I will give you guys a through review when I have the time to process the pics and write down whats in my head. in short the car is a gem to drive but some functions are just annoying.
tonight I will bring you a spoiler free review of Star Wars........
__________________
All the best,
Jerry 00 Z8 Jet Black/Red Sport / some others
Nice article Greg, thanks for sharing.
There are a couple of E65 imported last month through independent dealers down here, I don't think they will make the time to train owners or their chauffeurs to operate all the functions. I'm waiting to hear complaints from them in a not too distant future. (It's funny to read that even for Geoff Brabham reversing the car is an impossible task)
OT: Brain Drain - Funny article on the new 7
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