BMW unveils electric future

BMW unveiled some major changes to its long-awaited, painstakingly planned electric car program during a glitzy launch of its new i sub brand in Frankfurt on Friday.

With the full BMW board and Germany’s Transport Minister all in attendance, it showed off two versions each of the i3 city car and i8 electric car to launch the i brand ahead of the start of full production in 2013.

Yet, while the i8 eco supercar remains on track to combine petrol and electric power to hit 250km/h while sipping petrol at the rate of 3 litres/100km, the revolutionary, carbon-fibre i3 has had a major overhaul.

Expected to be the mainstay of the i brand, just as its similarly-named 3-Series is the mainstay of the BMW brand, it has morphed from a pure electric concept car, with its engine sitting over the rear axle, into a two-model family with the option of a range-extending petrol engine.

The base version of the i3 will still be powered by a 125kW, 250Nm electric motor and will sprint to 60km/h in 3.9 seconds and to 100km/h in 7.9 seconds. It’s also around 300kg lighter than the MINI e, which allows BMW to give the i3 a battery pack around 40 percent smaller than the MINI trial car.

With Sales and Marketing Director, Ian Robertson, admitting it had learned lessons from its MINI e trial project in the US, the i3 will now be offered as a pure electric car and a Chevrolet Volt-like range-extending hybrid, using a variation of the i8’s three-cylinder petrol REx engine.

Robertson’s team jumped in to give the i launch first use of BMW’s multi-million euro pavilion at the Frankfurt Motor Show complex, built extravagantly ahead of September’s 3-Series launch. It’s clear that BMW is hoping the i3 will become the brand’s mainstay within 15 years. To do it, the 1250kg production car will debut with between 130km/h and 160km/h from the pure electric version and more than 400km from its range extended version.

But, while that may be a nod to the demands of U.S. customers for more than just a commuting, mid-week car, it will have peace-of-mind benefits for buyers around the world.

Still, the battery will recharge completely in six hours from a standard electrical socket, or to 80 percent capacity within an hour.

BMW hasn’t changed the most radical parts of the car, though, with its entire manufacture based around two different modules: the Drive and the Life modules.

The Drive module is based around an aluminum chassis and contains the electric (and, now, petrol) motor, the Lithium-Ion battery pack tucked safely in the middle of the car and all the running gear. The Life module is a carbon-fibre passenger cell that connects to the Drive module by four bolts and umpteen electrical connectors.

The Life modules will have a long life, even before they’re driven on the road. The i3 (and i8) carbon-fibre starts its life as a precursor in Japan, is shipped to Moses Lake in Washington State to be turned into the carbon fibres, shipped back to Wackersdorf in Germany for weaving into sheets and is then trucked to BMW’s Landshut and Leipzig factories.

Even so, BMW claims it will take only 50,000km before the i3’s environmental benefits pay off compared to a petrol-engined car – and that’s assuming it’s running on the European standard of 25 percent renewable energy. In countries with a higher level of renewable energy in the supply chain, it takes even less distance to break even, partly due to the chassis containing a high percentage of recycled aluminium.

It promises to be practical, too, with a 2570mm wheelbase indicating the car will have useful rear seat space to make it worth the effort of engineering a set of suicide doors (or, as BMW prefers to call them, “carriage” doors). It’s not a lot longer than its wheelbase, though, with a 3845mm overall length and, curiously for a city-based car, an enormous 2011mm overall width.

While the i3 will be the rock on which the sub brand is built, the i8 will claim the glory.

With an electric motor driving the front wheels, a long, thin battery through the middle of the cabin and a 164kW, 300Nm 1.5-litre, turbo-charged petrol engine driving the rear wheels, it also carries the Drive and Life module concepts of the i3.

At 1480kg, the carbon-based i8 is hundreds of kilos lighter than comparable supercars, still has the 50:50 front-to-rear weight distribution typical of BMWs, hits 100km/h in 4.9 seconds and is speed limited to 250km/h.

Even so, it uses just three litres per 100km and can run as a pure electric car for 35km – perfect for the emissions-limited city life BMW expects to become part of the future of megacities. Even then, its Lithium-ion battery can be recharge completely in two hours.

“Immediately, these cars will be much more appropriate to high density urban areas,” Robertson said. “But we will spread out from there as well.”

“A lot of where we go and when will depend on consumer performance and congestion zones like London already has, and government assistance and incentives for zero and low emission vehicles.”

BMW has been coy on i production numbers, but it is understood from senior sources that the Leipzig plant can build up to 30,000 cars, split between the i3 and the i8, though BMW admits it will be some years before it achieves those numbers.

“The investments are part of our development program and in line with our normal five to 5.5 percent of turnover being dedicated to Research and Development,” Production Director Frank-Peter Arndt said.

“It is also planned to be in support of our targets of profits of eight to 10 percent of sales,” he said.

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