Let's not beat about the bush: I don't like the iNext concept. I don't like how comically futuristic it looks. I want cars — particularly cars using alternative energy sources — to look like they belong in the present, not some parallel sci-fi reality.

Still, I was always able to cling to the hope that nobody would actually build a car like that, right? Letting wildly "adventurous" design ideas actually make it to production hasn't been a thing since the heady excitement of Y2K let stuff like the Fiat Multipla and Pontiac Aztek creep past everybody's better judgment unopposed. Right? Right?!

By and large you will certainly recognize this concept car in the production vehicle

Unfortunately, BMW design chief Adrian van Hooydonk has been talking to Top Gear and pretty much just slapping me in the face. The iNext isn't due to be launched until 2021 — when electric cars are going to seem even less futuristic than they do now BTW — so van Hooydonk admits there's still a lot of work to do, but nevertheless, he claims that "by and large you will certainly recognize this concept car in the production vehicle". Ugh.

Of course it's still possible that we'll recognize it in the same way we recognize the Z9 concept in the E63 6 Series — kinda similar, but also significantly less hideous. Then again, the E63 probably should have strayed a little further from the Z9 if it didn't want people asking if it was ugly. And van Hooydonk himself was the man behind that one, which might not be a good sign.

OK, Adrian, let's make a deal. You can keep the outline. You can keep those strangely shaped fenders. You can even keep that iPhone notch thing on the side windows. But for the love of God if you put that kidney on a real car then I'm never talking to you again.