Plug-in 7 caught?

BMW showed off its ActiveHybrid 7 Series at the recent Frankfurt motor show, but a chance sighting may have confirmed production and advanced versions of the green limousine are further advanced than the company cares to admit.

Our man in Europe, Michael Taylor, spied a fleet of four hybrid 7 Series BMWs crossing from Munich into Austria past Garmisch this week, then caught up with them again travelling in convoy down the Brenner Pass in northern Italy. The four cars, clearly marked as BMW test department vehicles, all featured tell-tale plugs on the right side of the rear bumper bar. The plugs looks like the type used to charge battery packs in plug-in style vehicles.

The just-announced ActiveHybrid cars combine a TwinPower, 4.4-litre V8 gasoline engine and an electric motor -- all running through the all-new eight-speed automatic transmission. The gearbox unit, which debuted in the 760Li just months ago, was pre-engineered for hybrid work and also features Start-Stop technology.

The ActiveHybrid 7 combined petrol/electric powertrain delivers a substantial 342kW and 700Nm. Like Mercedes-Benz's S400 Hybrid, its electric motor sits between the engine and the transmission, and runs on a lithium-ion battery.

BMW already claims the ActiveHybrid 7 will punch to 100km/h in a very M3-like 4.9 seconds while keeping its average EU fuel consumption cycle numbers down to 9.4L/100km, with 219g/km of CO2 emissions.

The ActiveHybrid 7 runs a 120V on-board network and it claims one of its big advantages is that it allows full air-conditioning even when the engine is switched off in stop-start traffic. It uses a 35-cell battery with its own computer, generating 400 Watt/hours and weighing only 27kg. Not only that, it takes up no additional space, fitting into the curious box area usually dedicated to the rear-seat air-conditioning compressor in the middle of the boot.

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