BMW Going Green?

Honestly believe BMW/Mini has made a decision that will greatly affect the charm of the brand. The R60….

The fact is that I believe a honest attempt to create a truly green Mini would have actually added to the reputation of the brand, something no SUV will ever do.

imo

“While Mini would seem to be a perfect target for BMW’s aspirations, the company is afraid that adding too many models to the brand could dilute its charm.”

How ironic is this statement?!

I agree with Jon, I’d take a Green MINI over an SUV MINI any day.

If MINI insists in not bringing the Dooper model to the US market, at least, I would be happy with a Flexfuel MINI engine that takes E85 ethanol gas. It seems to me that BMW is really behind the curve in the US market when it comes to alternative fuels powered vehicles.

Amen to that, Bill Lawrence.

Further, while I agree that Hydrogen technology is the “real” long term solution for the future, we are still a good 10-15 years away before we see affordable mass produced hydrogen powered cars and the required support infrastructure to keep them running (Fueling stations, etc).

However, if I walk into a BMW showroom in the United States today, I won’t find a single alternate fuel vehicle offering. Not until the Diesel 3 series and X5 are both launch to market.

I am not a fan of the Hybrid vehicle camp. I think it is for all practical purposes, a bogus, overhyped and passe stop gap technology. Diesels offer a true cost effective alternative in my book.

zm Wrote: -h2 will never make sense from efficiency or fueling infrastructure standpoints (why electrolysize water when you can put that electricity directly to work in an electric car?)

IMHO, I disagree. It will make a lot of sense once the public is ready again to embrace an efficient technology to manufacture it. It is clean, safe, and reliable. Not to mention relatively easy to do as a conversion. This efficient source? Nuclear. You mentioned it yourself. The only problem? “NIMBY”.

I am not opposed to electric cars – but am yet to see a practical prototype.

Ever hear about capcitor batteries? AUS knows all about ‘em. They last longer and weigh less. Diesel electric using such technology is a viable direction for BMW to pursue.

Good discussion.

How is MINI not the perfect platform to lead the way in fuel efficent cars as has been stated above. I agree that if they create something truly special, the brand won’t be diluted it will be strengthened. zm, if you were to design a ‘green’ MINI, how would you power it, would it be alot lighter than the R56, would it be any smaller ? I’m interested to hear your views because I believe that we can have something that is fuel efficient, safe, desirable and still alot of fun.

like a lot of commenters have said, diesel is the way to go. but, where the finger gets pointed at auto makers for not making 50-state legal diesels, it’s not really their fault. the reason the cars need big urea tanks is we refine a really dirty version of diesel fuel in the US. if we had clean diesel we’d have cooper D’s in the US (not to mention lower lung cancer & asthma rates).

each of us would also have a more expensive cost of goods basket, since the trucking industry would have to pay more for clean fuel & from increased demand as it became more popular in the non-commercial transportation sector.

b/c of all the needed systems, you can’t really do a hybrid on a car as small as a mini. so, that leaves us at an all electric mini–much like a tesla. but, even a tesla has a huge battery pack, is a decent bit smaller & lighter, and still only gets 200-250mi on a charge–something that would never work w/ all the mini roadtrips we all like to take.

unfortunately, it’s kind of a catch-22 on a car as small as a mini. you can’t have huge urea tanks, and you can’t have all the hybrid subsystems b/c battery packs are so huge. you’d think you could make it super efficient b/c of it’s size, but there’s just not enough room to make it happen w/ today’s tech. super capacitors, better batteries, etc have to happen to make hybrid systems smaller.

lastly, a lot of mini owners are already ‘green conscious’, hence the reason they bought a mini. me personally, i couldn’t find a smaller, more practical, sporty, lowest total cost of ownership vehicle, so here i am. i think a lot of us are the same way (and why we’re having this conversation).

so i agree, a green mini would only be applauded by the masses. but until diesel fuel gets cleaned up or energy storage gets better, the direct injection turbo in the r56 might be what we’re stuck with.

maybe we can get some cellulosic ethanol in between there, but in the end that’s still combustion. if you combust your fuel you’ll always end up w/ a lot of co2, regardless of the fuel.

unless that fuel is h2 (enter the h2 camp…). b/c of the reasons i’ve already mentioned (inefficiency of electrolyzing water, compressing h2 to 10kpsi, turning h2 into electricity through the fc stack or combusting it in an ICE, then finally sending the electricity to the motors), you have to greatly increase national solar/renewable/nuclear elec output just to break even w/ demand required for plug-in cars.

knowing how little of our current energy is renewable & how inefficient current solar tech is, that’s almost laughable. not to mention, the added raw material & industrial waste costs to build out that larger energy infrastructure–something that’s often forgotten by the h2 crowd.

yes, all electric cars have a lot of waste, too. we’d be stupid to stick 1000′s of laptop batteries into every car. that’s where moore’s law will come in a trump any advances in petro tech. electronics will become much more capable, cheaper, smaller, etc, much more quickly than any combustion or fuel cell tech could ever hope to keep up.

both the ICE & fuel cells have been around since the 1800s. the transistor, late 1940′s…

but, what do you guys think?

agreed, simplest is best.

to me that means all electric w/ solar/nuke energy down the road. to others that means h2.

one always has to take into acct total life cycle analysis in the production of a vehicle. but, that also has to be coupled w/ well/field-to-wheels analysis for the fuel source & its needed distribution infrastructure.

it’s hard to argue against the effeciency gains you see w/ hybrids in large vehicles–there are some huge mpg improvements that vastly outweigh the hybrid raw material cost/complexity/enviro impacts. in smaller cars (like a prius) the benefit is certainly less & becomes questionable depending on its use–i.e., is it a city car or a highway car, is it driven easily or aggressively?

in the end, it’s not which tech should be chosen over all others, it’s what mix of technologies should be chosen to specifically suit certain vehicles for different uses.

b/c of what’s been discussed we can see that’s a very tough balancing act for mini–a small car w/ a large demographic of customers, each w/ their own use.

if they could somehow fit a diesel hybrid in there, that’d be great. but really, we need the next generation of batt, super cap tech to come out to make that happen.

certainly can’t fault them for putting a highly efficient gas motor in the r56 in the meantime, though.

So we can conclude that the trucking industry lobby is what is preventing the rest of us from getting a Dooper in the United States?

Toyota must be laughing their asses off..

Thanks zm !!

no kidd, r56 mpg is very high, considering. direct injection turbo motors are great for efficiency & torque.

anyone else see that the US smart car is rated 33/40? that’s ludicrous. it’d have to get 70mpg for me to even consider a test drive.

Honestly the most humorous thing is that people get transfixed by single technologies fixing all issues. I personally believe the real fix for alternative fuel vehicles is a blend. I see the case for bio-diesel, H2, gas/electric hybrids, plug in electrics. While I don’t see Mini developing a variety of flex fuel vehicles think this market has a HUGE future.