BMW

This week, BMW unveiled the 2018 version of its flagship all-electric vehicle, the BMW i3.

Unless you are a true fan of the i3 program, you probably won’t see anything major with this new version, which doesn’t feature any significant powertrain upgrade, but there are a few new nice changes. 
Expand
Expanding
Close

BMW is about to unveil its new roadster version of its BMW i8 plug-in hybrid and today it released new teaser images of the vehicle and preliminary energy consumption figures.
Expand
Expanding
Close

As part of its electrification plans, BMW made a few announcements today. Mainly, they announced that their new car architecture will enable “electrification of every model series.”

They also elaborated on their plan to manufacture their next all-electric vehicle, the Mini 3-door. 
Expand
Expanding
Close

The first few seasons of the all-electric Formula E championship have been more successful than most motorsport fans would have ever predicted.

Over the past few months, it managed to convince Audi and BMW to take spots for future seasons and this week, Mercedes-Benz has now announced that it will have its own team.

While all those premium automakers are joining the Formula E, Tesla has been surprisingly staying away from the all-electric championship despite being a leader in the development and commercialization of EVs.
Expand
Expanding
Close

On the new electric vehicle front, BMW had nothing to offer since launching the i3 and i8 almost 5 years ago and they are not expected to have a new EV built from the ground up to be electric until the end of the decade.

But they could be releasing updated versions of their current EVs in order to compete with new longer range electric cars coming to market.
Expand
Expanding
Close

After Zero Motorcycles’ e-bike powertrains being used to power electric jetskis, now BMW’s i3 battery packs are powering electric boats.

The German automaker confirmed today a deal with Torqeedo, a German boat manufacturer, to use their battery pack in a new electric boat powertrains.
Expand
Expanding
Close

BMW is planning a new roadster version of its BMW i8 plug-in hybrid next year and today it released the first teaser images of the vehicle.
Expand
Expanding
Close

While BMW’s electric car plans have long been confusing, the German has been positioning itself for moving more seriously in the electric vehicle space lately. The company started holding meetings to warn employees that EVS are coming and here to stay and they announced production expansion for their upcoming electric vehicles.

Now a long-rumored all-electric (not its half hearted 330E) version of its popular BMW 3 Series is reportedly going to be unveiled in September.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Over the past few months, Tesla’s valuation surged past Ford and GM but following another surge over the past 2 weeks, Tesla’s market capitalization is now worth more than BMW’s.

It is now the 4th most valuable car company in the world.

Expand
Expanding
Close

BMW has unveiled yet another electric vehicle concept as part of its Vision Next 100 series, but this time for BMW Motorrad.

The scooter-like concept is called ‘The BMW Motorrad Concept Link’ and it is supposed to represent BMW’s vision for the future of electric transport on two wheels.
Expand
Expanding
Close

In the race to develop self-driving cars, companies are racing to make partnerships and acquisitions in order to increase their chances.

BMW, which had already partnered with Intel and Mobileye (before Intel actually acquired Mobileye), is now partnering with Delphi, another major player in the self-driving field.
Expand
Expanding
Close

“Charging is optional, thrilling is not.” it says on the BMW iPerformance website. A bold statement but one that is unfortunately true. The regenerative brakes charge the battery, so you don’t necessarily have to charge it, and the 330e is indeed a thrilling ride. However there are so many questions: Is the 330e still the Ultimate Driving Machine? Did BMW successfully bridge the gap between a sports sedan with an internal combustion engine and an electric vehicle? Can it drive like an EV in urban environments and still provide a thrilling drive on backroads while being somewhat frugal on gas? Is the BMW 330e the ultimate hybrid or an overpriced Prius on steroids?

Keep reading and find out our conclusion after putting this car through its paces.
Expand
Expanding
Close

BMW has been using DriveNow, its car-sharing program, to deploy large numbers of electric vehicles quickly. They delivered 400 BMW i3 EVs in Copenhagen back in 2015.

The German automaker announced this week that it will deploy 550 electric vehicles, 400 all-electric cars and 150 plug-in hybrids, across the city of Hamburg in Germany by 2019.
Expand
Expanding
Close

BMW has been positioning itself for moving more seriously in the electric vehicle space lately. The company started holding meetings to warn employees that EVS are coming and here to stay and they announced production expansion for its upcoming electric vehicles.

During their earning for the first quarter 2017, BMW CEO Harald Krüger said that they see momentum for its EV sales and highlighted that BMW i3 deliveries grew 50% in 2017.
Expand
Expanding
Close

The best way to know if a legacy automaker is getting serious about electric vehicles is to see if they are investing in converting their current manufacturing capacity to electric vehicle manufacturing capacity. We recently reported on Daimler and Volkswagen making the move in Germany and BMW now announces that it is following suit.

Today, the automaker confirmed that it will build the first fully electric MINI in 2019 and a fully electric BMW X3 in 2020 at its Leipzig plant, while the upcoming “fully electric BMW iNEXT” will be manufactured at the Dingolfing plant in 2021.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Elon Musk wanted Tesla to create a sense of urgency for other automakers to move faster on electric vehicles and accelerate the overall transition to sustainable transport. It helped for some, but others still don’t take Tesla or EVs seriously.

It’s certainly not the case for BMW anymore since the company is now saying that it was under “an electric assault” in reference to Tesla and other automakers working on electric vehicles. The German automaker seems now more inclined to move into the electric vehicle space.
Expand
Expanding
Close

BMW of North America and the US National Parks Services had a lovely event at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park, site of Edison’s West Orange, N.J., laboratory and home yesterday and Electrek was on the scene. The event was the announcement that BMW would be partnering with the National Park Foundation, National Park Service and Department of Energy to bring 100 EV charging stations to National Parks like this one. BMW will also be footing the electric bill for the first 6 months of use, making it free for customers. I have just one little complaint…
Expand
Expanding
Close

We have been really suspicious of BMW’s plan for electrification mainly because they seem to have left an unnecessary 7-year gap in their electrification effort between the launch of ‘BMW i’ with the i3 in 2013 and the next ‘i’ vehicle, which is expected in 2020-2021. The weird-looking all-electric concepts that they have unveiled since are also not helping – pictured above.

At its shareholder meeting this week, the German automaker has laid out its plan for electric vehicles in more details and it now seems to be going in the right direction.
Expand
Expanding
Close

The Formula E, an all-electric racing championship, has been gaining a lot of credibility over the last few year with several serious automotive companies, like Renault, Citroen, Mahindra, Jaguar, and Audi already involved in the championship, as well as a few newcomers like NextEV and Faraday Future.

BMW Motorsport has also been involved through its backing of the MS Amlin Andretti team, but now the German automaker is announcing its intention to enter the season 5 of the racing series with its own team now that it has been approved as a manufacturer.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Vattenfall, an important energy company in Europe, unveiled last year a new 2.8 MWh energy storage facility built with batteries from over 100 BMW i3 electric cars.

It was an interesting project since they are using used battery modules from electric vehicles, but now the company has announced a different contract with BMW this week to buy brand new i3 battery packs directly from them for the same reason.
Expand
Expanding
Close