BMW prepares an electric Mini Cooper
Those staggeringly high numbers at the gas pumps got you down? Well, then you just may be especially interested in BMW’s latest brainchild, their remake of the Mini Cooper. Over the next 18 months, BMW plans to use several hundred of their Mini’s to test electric powertrains. They haven’t leaked much detail-wise, regarding motors or batteries; although they say details will will be forthcoming by the end of the year.
However, the plans to test are just that…tests. They don’t plan to roll them out onto the assembly line for consumer purchase any time soon. Finally jumping on the environmentally-friendly bandwagon that the other Big Two German car makers, Volkswagen and Daimler, are already on, BMW is now committing to testing completely electric vehicles, but not quite ready to take the plunge to actually market them. As for hybrid cars that use a traditional gasoline engine combined with an electric motor, they should arrive “at the end of next year,“ a company spokesperson for BWM was quoted as saying.
Regardless of some of their statements to the contrary, German marketing expert Ferdinand Dudenheffer isn’t quite so sure German manufacturers are fully ready to take the leap to hybrid or electric for a couple of reasons. He feels “it’s important but there is also a bit of marketing mixed in.“ He says that German motors were always either petrol or diesel, and that Toyota has a five-year lead because of the German’s opposition to hybrid. He thinks this is in a large part due to a psychological factor, and the fact that since the Germans are engineers, unlike France, they don’t know how to make do with what they have. “With hybrids, they estimated it was not the best system, with two motors, a battery and a fuel tank,“ Dudenheffer said. “Germans always have the most elegant solution but one which takes 20 years to bring to fruition!“
Bjoern Eberleh, who works at the research group Akasol, noted that Germans also had a relationship with their automobiles which meant that “for many, its is a question of image, they tend to their cars and they have to be powerful ... but that is changing.“
With the price at the gas pumps what they are, and looking like they are only on the upward move, I’m thinking many won’t care if the cars are electric, wind-up, or run on kool-aid. But maybe that’s just me.
Read [TodayOnline]
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if you go to the PML website and scroll right down to the bottom of the page you will see (and I have cut and pasted this) ...“BMW (UK) Ltd has requested that we mention they have no involvement with this project and that such conversions invalidate warranty!“... Has this now changed? is BMW involved after all?? .....This article states: “BMW prepares an electric Mini Cooper, by Jodie Andrefski on Jul 14, 2008 at 01:06 PM”.. and shows a Mini with PML labled under the bonnet.
on August 7, 2008 at 08:15 AM - LINKHi Mike, The picture was in no way meant to imply that BMW is involved in any conversion project with PML. The article here talks about several car manufacturers and lessons they learned/are learning regarding going electric. The photo is simply showing an electric vehicle close-up at a show where such vehicles were on display, giving consumers a chance to see under the hood (or bonnet). Hope this clears things up for you.
on August 7, 2008 at 09:09 AM - LINK