AUTO INDUSTRY

German carmaker BMW in June lifted the veil on its 2018 X3 sports-utility vehicle (SUV) at its factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in the US.

The new X3 is also the vehicle the Rosslyn plant is gearing up to produce for the local and export markets, after assembling several generations of 3 Series sedans at the Pretoria facility.

The new BMW X3 will be launched in the US autumn.

BMW SA and sub-Saharan Africa CEO Tim Abbott noted earlier this year that delivery of the first new X3s from Rosslyn to customers will only take place in 2018.

BMW has invested around R6-billion to prepare the company’s Rosslyn plant for X3 production.

X3 assembly at the Rosslyn plant signals the first time that a BMW X-product (denoting a BMW SUV) will be produced outside the US.

BMW has recorded more than 1.5-million new registrations of the X3 across the two model generations introduced since 2003.

In 2016, around 30% of all BMWs sold globally were SUV X-models. X-model sales jumped from 295 000 units in 2010 to 644 992 units in 2016.

The new X3 comes with a host of new features, such as three-zone automatic climate control, active seat ventilation, 40:20:40 split/folding rear seats and a panoramic glass roof.

Another new equipment item is the optional BMW display key, which not only locks and unlocks the BMW X3 by radio remote control, but also shows a variety of status information on the car and serves as the control unit for the optional auxiliary heating, for example.

The new BMW X3 now also features BMW Connected.

Working on the basis of a flexible platform, the Open Mobility Cloud, this new integrated digital concept for enhanced personal mobility uses various touch points (such as smartphones and smartwatches) to integrate the car into the user’s digital life.

This means, for example, that it can transfer mobility-related information, such as addresses from calendar entries, from a smartphone to the car, enter them automatically as destinations into the navigation system and calculate the optimum departure time for the journey.

Gesture control in the X3 allows various navigation and infotainment system functions to be operated intuitively, using finger and hand gestures.

The optional Voice Assistant allows the driver to use everyday language to have requests turned into the appropriate actions, instead of having to use set spoken commands.

It is not yet clear if all these innovations will be available in the South African X3 models.