BMW Commercial Appears to Promote Sex in a Self-Driving Car

From Car and Driver

• BMW found an interesting way to get attention for its Vision iNext concept's autonomous-driving capability: an ad strongly implying it enables sex in the moving vehicle.

• Well, now we know what it means that BMW is going beyond Level 2 (driver input needed) self-driving technology in the concept.

• C/D has reached out to the automaker for comment and can hardly wait to see the response.

At least one amateur video of people having sex in a self-driving car has already happened—just ask Tesla's Elon Musk—but you don't see automakers actively promoting this kind of behavior. At least, you didn’t until BMW i tweeted out an eye-catching video of what we're pretty sure is two people taking full advantage of the autonomous capabilities of the BMW Vision iNext concept.

The video's taglines are "A space where everything can be done with ease" and "New moments of joy," and it merges lights from what look like a dance club where the couple starts their "moment of joy," merged with the flashing lights of a passing police car as it goes past the Vision iNext with no human silhouettes visible. If you want to know the difference between today’s Level 2 autonomous-driving technology and the next-gen tech on the iNEXT, that pretty much explains it all.

The BMW Vision iNEXT is a preview of an all-electric crossover that BMW plans to built at its Dingolfing plant in Germany starting in 2021. BMW wants the production version of the Vision iNEXT to become the company’s new technology flagship, which we know it will when the company slogan changes to the Ultimate Sex Machine.

For now, the implications of this ad are pretty clear. BMW is going to make a self-driving car so safe that you’ll be able to take off your seat belt and more and everything else when you’re inside. That’s a huge difference from how automakers are pitching their self-driving technology today, full of warnings about needing to keep your hands on the wheel and remain attentive at all times. BMW’s own disclaimer about the autonomous capabilities of its current vehicles say that the features are”not a substitute for the driver's own responsibility. Due to road, traffic and visibility conditions, the driver decides whether and how the system is used.”

As forward-looking as this ad is, BMW is just playing catch-up to how some people are using Tesla’s Autopilot today. In May, CEO Elon Musk discovered that a Tesla running on Autopilot was used in a video on Pornhub and tweeted (without a link to said video): "Turns out there's more ways to use Autopilot than we imagined."

Now that it's apparently cool for an automaker to promote this kind of behavior, and since Musk enjoys one-upping his rivals (see also: the recent Nürburgring battle between Tesla and Porsche), we look forward to Musk’s response to this one.

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