BMW unveils plans to enter Plug-in Market

Posted on November 10, 2010 by derek

As the race is unfolds for EV dominance in the automotive world, the Japanese look to be the taking the lead, in terms of reaching that first milestone: Rolling out a production model – The Nissan Leaf for example, looks set to be driven out of showrooms in December.

In Europe, things have paced along considerably less briskly, with Volkswagon Audi & Mercedes Benz announcing plans for a range of “greener” cars, though we don’t expect to see any of them zooming down on expressways anytime soon. By far considered a laggard in the Plug-in vehicle segment, BMW hasn’t made much news in the space, only showing off concept cars that don’t enter production.

However, as of last week, all that is about to change: BMW recently announced that it will invest US$560 Million to produce an electric car. Yes, one you can drive home, but you’ll have to wait till 2013.

I got a peek of what we may see in the future, at BMW World at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore: The BMW Concept 5 Series Active Hybrid. It uses the 300-horsepower twin-scroll turbo inline-six available in the 535i, however, this engine can be disengaged for a full electric drive for “city speeds”.

So what’s so groundbreaking about this? According to Autoblog:

BMW has incorporated a variety of new strategies into the hybrid control, such as monitoring the navigation route to anticipate what is coming up and to make maximum use of the electric drive. At this point, BMW is not giving specifics on the efficiency of the new hybrid except to say that it should improve on the standard model by more than 10 percent.

and here’s what they say on the BMW World website:

Imagine a car with a hybrid engine completely redesigned to conserve fuel by up to 20%, regenerate energy during driving — yet performs like a sports car. Is this the face of sustainable driving pleasure in the future?

I’ll hold my judgement for now, but Sustainable Driving Pleasure sounds like a nice concept…