Adweek explains:

RAM did it with Paul Harvey. Apple did it with Walt Whitman (by way of Robin Williams). Visa did it with Amelia Earhart. Now, it's BMW's turn to use the poetic words of a long-ago visionary to sell a modern product.

The automaker is using a recording of Arthur C. Clarke to celebrate the promise of the future, as realized today by the new BMW i series of electric cars.

"Trying to predict the future is a discouraging and hazardous occupation," Clark says in the audio recording from 1964 which serves as the voiceover for BMW i's 60-second launch spot, "Hello Future." The ad broke Friday night during NBC's coverage of the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Russia.

What Arthur C. Clarke, inventor, futurist and author, predicted in 1964 has come to life today. "The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic."  

Trying to predict the future, it is a discouraging, hazardous occupation. If by some miracle a prophet could describe the future, exactly as it was going to take place, his predictions would sound so absurd that everybody would laugh him to scorn. The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic. So, if what I say now seems to you to be very reasonable, then I'll have failed completely. Only if what I tell you appears absolutely unbelievable, there'll be any chance of visualizing the future as it really will happen.

Nailed it! http://pandawhale.com/post/37355/new-audi-ad-nailed-it