Source: Autopia.com
The slick electric BMW we saw at the Detroit auto show is slated to hit the road next year, following the Mini-E and laying the groundwork for a mass-market electric car we could see by 2014.
Klaus Draeger, the BMW board member who leads company’s research and development, tells Automotive News the Active-E electric concept will see limited production later this year and hit the road for extended field trials early next year. The trial follows a similar program with the Mini-E electric car in which 450 vehicles were leased — at $850 a month — to people in California, New York and New Jersey. That program was to last one year, but Draeger says it has been extended indefinitely.
All of this jibes with what Ulrich Kranz, head of the German automaker’s Project i team developing low-emissions city cars, told us in Detroit when the Active-E made its debut at the North American International Auto Show.
How many BMWs? How much will they cost? Who gets them? And for how long? Draeger didn’t say. But if the Mini-E program is any indication, the answers to the first two questions are not many and a whole lot. As for the second two, BMW carefully screened applicants for the Mini-E program to make sure they met a long list of requirements, and after planning to let them have the cars for a year has extended it indefinitely.
The electric BMW program will probably follow the same format.
The Active-E is rear-wheel drive, and it is powered by a 125 kilowatt (170 horsepower) synchronous motor mounted in the differential housing. Juice comes from a liquid-cooled 32-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion batterymounted in the transmission tunnel and under the hood. BMW says its good for 100 miles and recharges in six hours at 220 volts.
Read More http://www.wired.com/autopia/#ixzz0d9tBxlw2
The slick electric BMW we saw at the Detroit auto show is slated to hit the road next year, following the Mini-E and laying the groundwork for a mass-market electric car we could see by 2014.
Klaus Draeger, the BMW board member who leads company’s research and development, tells Automotive News the Active-E electric concept will see limited production later this year and hit the road for extended field trials early next year. The trial follows a similar program with the Mini-E electric car in which 450 vehicles were leased — at $850 a month — to people in California, New York and New Jersey. That program was to last one year, but Draeger says it has been extended indefinitely.
All of this jibes with what Ulrich Kranz, head of the German automaker’s Project i team developing low-emissions city cars, told us in Detroit when the Active-E made its debut at the North American International Auto Show.
How many BMWs? How much will they cost? Who gets them? And for how long? Draeger didn’t say. But if the Mini-E program is any indication, the answers to the first two questions are not many and a whole lot. As for the second two, BMW carefully screened applicants for the Mini-E program to make sure they met a long list of requirements, and after planning to let them have the cars for a year has extended it indefinitely.
The electric BMW program will probably follow the same format.
The Active-E is rear-wheel drive, and it is powered by a 125 kilowatt (170 horsepower) synchronous motor mounted in the differential housing. Juice comes from a liquid-cooled 32-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion batterymounted in the transmission tunnel and under the hood. BMW says its good for 100 miles and recharges in six hours at 220 volts.
Read More http://www.wired.com/autopia/#ixzz0d9tBxlw2
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