BMW's Ultimate Driving Machine, for Driving Through Gunfire and Grenades | Hacker News Reader

BMW's Ultimate Driving Machine, for Driving Through Gunfire and Grenades

core77.com

68 pointsbookofjoe54 comments

Interesting read on the BMW 7 series Protection vehicle. Here's a tidbit from the field: I've heard, through the grapevine, about a team responsible for the safety of a certain high-profile individual (no names mentioned, of course ). About a year ago, they made a strategic shift away from BMWs as protection vehicles. Why? Because in emergency escape scenarios, it's crucial to be able to move the car even with the doors not fully closed / deliberately open. But with the BMW, if the doors aren't fully closed, the car won't budge. It's a fascinating look at how design features in luxury vehicles can intersect with real-world security needs in unexpected ways.

Disclaimer: I don't have primary knowledge of this, and it's second-hand information from someone I trust personally. As with all such information, grain of salt recommended.

It's not luxury only. Any modern car with an automatic that is controlled by wire will do that.

Start car, leave door open, let go of brake and it'll jump in Park. Safety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Yelchin#Death his death would've been prevented if the feature was implemented earlier.

But, knowing it's a BMW, it probably can be disabled. And it actually still works when you have your seatbelt on (as proof of being in control of the vehicle).

Mine is a few years old hybrid but you can move it with the door opoen. I only know because occasiionally I've cracked the door to physically watch the rear wheel during a tight manouver. I haven't tried any high speed James Bond stuff though.

This seems surprising to me. This is the sort of feature that I could easily see being controlled by the dealer, via 'coding' (effectively just changing config settings via the OBD2 port). It's a fairly easy process that anyone can do at home with a specialty phone app and a bluetooth OBD2 adapter. Though working with BMW as a third party might be troublesome if they didn't make this a configurable setting.

This is the sort of feature that I could easily see being controlled by splicing some wires together. I guess it depends on if it's just a switch or a more intelligent proximity sensor, but surely there's some way to jerry rig it.

There are other 'convenience' features that become problematic in a highly adversarial environment, such as unlocking all the doors when you shift into park, or unlocking the doors and shutting off the fuel supply when an accident is detected. In an emergency situation you may have to ram through a vehicle blockade- I would hate for the car to then suddenly shut down in that case...

Surely defeating that mechanism is simply a matter of replacing a few switches/sensors. How hard could BMW have possibly made this?

Paranoia at its finest, I meant the post

I ran into an old diplomat BMW 7-series in the junkyard in the 90s and that thing was so cool. It had a gun holster in the rear arm rest, like 2" thick windows, probably weighed like 7,000lb from all the armor and everything.

Which has me thinking, all this is cool, but the EV portion and all that weight just feels like you'll be a heavily armored sitting duck if you can't get away quick enough and the battery runs out. Probably doesn't matter though, even if it has 200-mile range this vehicle will probably be used at most within 20-50 miles of its home base.

And if you're the kind of person that travels in one of these, you likely also have a few additional vehicles in front of and behind your vehicle filled with highly-paid professionals ready and willing to carry you the last mile if your vehicle stops reason for any reason, to include mechanical failure.

The whole armored vehicle market is a relatively small one; it's interesting to learn that BMW is direct participant; I previously had no idea. I foresee a lot of wasted time scouring eBay looking for a project my family will resent me for later in my immediate future!

On the other hand, I'd expect the EV to deal much better with sudden acceleration and deceleration as well as aggressive cornering. Also everything required for the car to work is low to the ground, either between the wheels or on the undercarriage, with much lower part count. Fewer things to fail, and much harder for an attacker to disable (no stereotypical "sniper shot through the engine block").

As long as you only drive short trips (e.g. airport to destination) an EV sounds like a big upgrade.

Many cars like this have their own private jet to deliver it where it is to be used. You'll see many such cases around any major environmental conference.

I would bet money that this is exceedingly rare. You'd probably have to have a 767 or larger for this to make sense, and only a tiny fraction of private jets are this large. And then it would still have to be extensively modified to be able to fit a car. Not saying it never happens, I'm sure there's some oil prince or oligarch with a 787 that has a garage, but "many cars like this" is likely a huge stretch. Happy to be proven wrong.

Now, do some people who buy cars like this have them shipped via cargo plane to wherever they're needed? That's slightly more believable, but I bet it's still very uncommon.

Is that too unbelievable? I mean for private users maybe but state users, should be a drop in the bucket when you blend it into military expenses.

I’m sure they offset it with some bullshit carbon credits, don’t worry.

Interestingly, I had my first real world encounter with the other end of the carbon credits just two days ago. A friend of mine told me she had tried to get her neighbours (she lives in the woods) to apply for carbon credit grants in unison. They promise not to chop down their trees and/or to protect endangered plants on their properties, and get paid a certain amount by the Mexican government (obviously nowhere near what they'd get from chopping down and selling their trees...)

It's a scam because they likely were not planning on chopping down their trees anyways.

How is that a scam?

You propose that if I don't do something, you will pay me because it benefits you in some way.

I agree to not do that thing and happily walk away with the cash. Everybody gets what they want. Why does it matter whether or not I was planning to do the thing?

Because they are selling them as carbon credits in carbon markets for full price per ton of CO2 using fraudulent measures of how much carbon is additionally being averted (additionality). To be clear, the bad actors are those selling the credits claiming that these properties would have been chopped down otherwise (not the property owners).

Then actors like Apple, airlines, etc. get to claim they have fully offset their supply chain despite nothing of the sort occurring because of counterfeit carbon credits.

e: And fwiw, I have done analysis of this offline as part of a personal project - based on what I saw looking at global forestry data, the evidence is strong that the vast majority of REDD (deforestation) carbon credits are fraudulent IMO - areas being sold at the cost of carbon if the whole plot was cut down despite there being effectively no risk of that.

Flawed analogy time:

Ad: "Help thirsty kids in Africa!"

Reality: the kids get 100 liters of water a month from a river (yeah not enough).

You: pay a contribution hoping to get them more water.

The "offset" sellers: "See those 100 liters? 5 of them are now being paid by HeyLaughingBoy. He's helping!".

The carbon was being pulled from the air anyway, but paying gives you a certificate to say your money did that. Meanwhile the net CO2 output hasn't changed up nor down. Or rather up because you're consuming something that output CO2 to make. (Philosophical argument, the product would have already been made before your purchase, unless it's something bespoke...)

Right.

This is what those opposed to carbon credits believe will happen: abuse and fraud

Very little will be achieved towards the goal of lowering or sequestering carbon.

Carbon pipelines are an excellent example of this: taking advantage of overly generous federal tax credits to achieve very little.

To kill a senior states-person will certainly lead to war which is itself highly un-environmentally friendly. The carbon credits in this case are the expected value of any averted war. A single F-35 burns something like 1,500 gallons/hour.

Taking the car is a small price, economically and environmentally, to avoid the potential of war.

I think you'd be shocked just how many highly influential senior statesmen and business people can be killed before anyone gets even close to a war.

But sometimes it only takes one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Au...

War usually leads to recession which usually leads to reduced carbon.

I would assume they would instead rent them locally, transporting them sounds excessive unless they're super customized.

If you are a head of state / billionaire who thinks they need this level of protection, you're gonna trust the security & reliability of some random rental outfit in each city you visit? Zero chance.

Excess is relative. When you have $$billions, $150K extra to have your custom protection vehicle at the venue is no big deal. And, are they even rentable in all locales, and do you trust those suppliers?

I am with you - while this might seem excessive there are enough people that have the cash and the threat model to go with it.

From what I could find the 2009 Protection version (then called high security) was more around 400k-450k€. A standard model 7 runs from ~115k up to ~145k€.

Yes, I must say that I love BMW's approach. Everyone else just takes a frame and hangs off of it all the protection — just a massive increase in redundant weight and decrease in performance.

Far better to take BMW's approach, upgrade the materials so that the protection is structural; each component serves both purposes.

If you own an EV version of a vehicle like this, by the time you're close to running out of range in an emergency your helicopter-borne QRF should be there setting up a perimeter waiting for your backup convey to arrive.

> Innovative touch operating concept for protection-related special functions

It must be a special kind of UX hell to be operating a touchscreen while being shot at

What the hell is this website? my *whole Firefox stops* working

Yeah, the page refreshes non-stop.

Part of the series 7 protection features!

Same. Crashes Firefox, but not chrome.

I just want the gun youtubers to pool their funds to buy one and test it out. I'm curious how it does against tungsten cored rounds of various calibers such as 5.56, .308, .338 and maybe some .50 BMG.

Apparently the glass is VPAM 10 rated. Here's a list of weapons for different ratings https://www.aurum-security.de/en/standards/protection-levels...

7.62x54R is a pretty impressive round to be stopping with glass. I’m honestly pretty damn impressed.

It's an extremely lucrative grift to prey on the paranoia of the very rich.

Spot on. Musk is doing it with the cybertruck as well. It's a dog whistle for the rich being mindful about the unwashed masses finally picking up pitchforks.

I cannot stress this enough, a $60k or so electric truck has nothing in common with an uparmored billionaire-mobile.

You should probably stress it even more, or have Tesla change their product description:

> Cybertruck is built with an exterior shell made for ultimate durability and *passenger protection*. Starting with a *nearly impenetrable exoskeleton*, every component is designed for superior strength and endurance, from *Ultra-Hard 30X Cold-Rolled stainless-steel structural skin* to Tesla *armor glass*.

> If there was something better, we’d use it. Help eliminate dents, damage and long-term corrosion with a smooth monochrome exoskeleton that puts the shell on the outside of the car and *provides you and your passengers maximum protection*

> Ultra-strong glass and polymer-layered composite can *absorb and redirect impact force* for improved performance and damage tolerance.

Fine, I agree to some extent. This is not a billionaire-mobile. It's a paranoid-aspiring-billionaire-mobile.

I only hope I have enough money to get this and be protected when the plebs start throwing shit at my car.

For starters, Elon has made it very clear what the fantasy he's selling is; that of being a colonist on Mars. But more importantly, this truck is being sold as a work and adventure vehicle, that's why it's modeled with a tent and camping gear or a matching ATV. The emphasis on durability and shit is just Elon's weird idea of what a good rugged exploration vehicle would be.

Oh and finally, make no mistake the people who are driving a cybertruck are plebs. Anyone who doesn't have a professional driver and armed security is a pleb.

> Elon has made it very clear what the fantasy he's selling is

Please read my original comment again, emphasis on the 'dog whistle'

> Oh and finally, make no mistake the people who are driving a cybertruck are plebs. Anyone who doesn't have a professional driver and armed security is a pleb.

Please read my last comment again, emphasis on the 'aspiring'. And there are different classes of plebs. Plebs who can afford a 60k truck != plebs who live in their cars.

I bet that's not something you ever thought you'd have to say :-)

Parking in San Francisco just got a lot safer.

Has this sort of armored vehicle ever been put to use? I mean the safety features, not the driving around part.

Haven’t seen an upleveled bmw in action but yes these vehicles do get put to use and save lives.

Too much defence, they need to start adding offence in these vehicles

They're obnoxious vehicles carrying obnoxious people mostly, so this counts I guess?

Reminds me of the Escalade with… A POP UP GUN TURRET on the roof.

I wonder how will the Tesla CyberTruck compare with this...

All fun and games until the differential or electrics break down, as is the case with modern bmws. Then you’re stuck in an ultimate coffin.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com