Official BMW Press Release: Over the next months, the BMW Group will be carrying out various series of tests on electrically powered vehicles to determine the alternative drive of the future. Several hundred MINI brand vehicles are being prepared for this. The cars, built in the Oxford plant, will be modified accordingly in Munich and fitted out for trials.
“This step will allow the BMW Group to gain an initial knowledge of how mobility can be achieved efficiently using purely electrically powered vehicles. Our task here is to combine the ultimate driving experience with an efficient electrified drive with practically no emissions”, underlined Dr. Norbert Reithofer, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG.
The tests on alternative drives in a MINI body will be used over the next 12-18 months to refine the technology. Details about the drive concept and its marketing will be published towards the end of the year.
I am floored by this sudden development. For years I have been hearing about the Chevy Volt/Tesla Roadster/etc. and the battery technology problems, and here comes BMW and just pops out 500 electric Minis. What am I missing?
ulrich, I think it has something to do with BMW’s recent announcement that they probably won’t be able to meet the new CAFE standards.
Desperation has a way to awaken creativity. I think BMW has now embarked on their own “Manhattan Project”.
Tesla doesn’t have a problem with batteries. They have tranny issues. GM wants big batteries, they have a problem with batteries. But they all want Li-ion for range. No problem making cars with NiMH batteries now, but range is down, and they are much cheaper than the Li-ion.
The fed passed a 35 MPG CAFE, but it’s not sales weighted (I think). The CA standards that the Bush EPA didn’t approve (first time ever CAs requests were denied) would have been at about 45 MPG. This one takes work. Even Lutz says that 35 fleet can be done with current technology (didn’t want to admit it, but it squeeked out).
Now if BMW would do something simple and bring some 4 bangers to the US, they’d do a big step to lower overall fleed figures… After all there are some many who jones for the BMW roundel, they’d just get the cheapest one with the model designation debadged!
Matt
arrrgh, this site has been boring lately. Nothing good for a long time with the exception of the C4/Mr.Bean argument.
When do we get some factory JCW poop?
Factory JCW’s hit dealer floors on Monday I think, so there should be more info coming soon… (I hope)
Actually there has been quite a bit of gen 3 Mini stuff going around such as the Fiat platform being shared and a possibility of Alfa/Mini dealerships.
I’m glad more and more companies are taking the environment seriously, even though our own govt doesn’t give a rat’s butt about our kids’ futures.
All the major companies should get together and come up with a longer term, cost effective solution. Electricity relies on nuclear or steam/water plants. At least its a better approach then Ethanol. What where they thinking?!
Bravo BMW!!!
Goo dmove BMW…get us out of this oil dependency. Let’s do it!! I bet it will work.
So if a purely electric MINI is produced which effectively gets infinite mpg, how does have get the overall mpg up? X + Y + Z + infinity / 4 = infinity. 😛
How are purely electric vehicles going to change CAFE standards?
They still consume oil during the charging process.
The power plants have to create electricity to charge the MINI when you plug it in, and that process uses oil.
Not the hydroelectric plant down the road from my house…
eto, IIRC the CAFE standards aren’t just on mpg alone and it’s an average across the model range, therefore offering 500 zero emissions electric MINI’s will decrease the average across BMW/MINI’s model range (in CA only of course).
I stand (OK, sit) corrected, as found [HERE](<a href="http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/CARS/rules/CAFE/overview.htm" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/CARS/rules/CAFE/overview.htm</a>) the CAFE standards deal strictly with mpg so I don’t see how the 500 e-MINI’s would help there.
They should put a tiny gasoline engine in it, say, .1L or so just to do something that isn’t related to the drivetrain. Maybe just use it to spin up an alternator? Would give it non-infinite mileage, and you can advertise crazy things like “Only $5 to fill up the tank” which would be roughly gallon sized.
Yeah, I like that idea. Kind of like the Volt where the drivetrain is 100% electric but in order to extend the range there’s a gasoline powered generator on board.
RS. Maybe they should do something about the crisis of mermaids getting caught in fishing nets. It’s just as real a threat to our kids future.
If the new JCW really hits Monday then everyone missed out on my offer to bet we wouldn’t see it til September.
To bore more on the boards… there are lots of ways to get equivalents to MPG out of other forms of fuel. One of the best from the consumer perspective is cost equivalance. That is, the same cost of electricity that a gallon of gas costs, and see how far the car can go on the EPA City or Hyway loop. When my mom had an EV-1, she paid about 1.8 cents per mile when charging at night when electricity costs less. Using round numbers, that’s about 200 mpg equivalant with $4 a gallon gas.
For those that understand the energy cycles of the various power trains, the very best combo is what we’re slowly coming to: An electric car with small on-board deisel charging system. If the diesel engine isn’t in the drivetrain, it can run at it’s most efficient RPM when charging the batteries. You use the batteries as a storage medium, and drive with electric motors. Really, this is very, very efficient in terms of the energy cycle. Green house gas footprint is much, much lower than having to run the carbon fueled engine off peak efficiency as well.
FWIW, the uber electric mini with the 4 160 HP hub motors made in England gets 900 miles out of about 6 gallons of diesel, but that may be with fully charged batteries as well. I don’t remember the details that well. Even so, that’s got to be near the 100 mpg (imperial gallons, that is) milestone that would really, really help consumption.
And one more boring detail, the turnover time for the US automotive fleet is about 15 years. So it takes about 15 years for new technology to really hit high percentages of penetration.
Anyway, all this is better late than never.
Matt
Well stated Matt.
I am interested in seeing what Mini comes up with.
I wonder how the market will react to a transition to a QUIET electric MINI, with the MINI experience typically including the thrill of the engine supercharger / turbocharger / engine / exhaust sound? To give you an idea of this experience, put your MINI into neutral when rolling down a hill at speed where all you hear is the outside wind and tyre road noise.
Maybe MINI needs an intelligent sound module installed internally to reproduce supercharger/ turbocharger / engine / exhaust sounds in the cabin in line with anticipated speed gear changes and accelerator and brake pedal actions? Just a thought to smooth the electric market uptake….
Good point Aussom. I for one love the sound including the exhaust burble of the Mini however I think it would be even cooler to have a silent performance car. Imagine the shock on the other person’s face when your “silent” electric car blows them away (yes I understand there will still be plenty of noise from the motor, drivetrain and tires). I expect there will be a fad for a while that “silent” is cool.
For the rest, the intelligent sound module has been done before. There was one developed that made a compact car sound like a Ferrari or Lamborghini or whatever the user decided they wanted the car to sound like that day. If I remember correctly, it used noise canceling technology to cover the real engine sound. I don’t know if it ever progressed past the prototype stage. It seemed to me the market was limited. After all, who really wants everyone to notice that they are driving a Ford Festiva? Oh, you said internally, my mistake, nobody else would know…