BMW: Hybrids Not the Only Green Answer
BMW began selling its first hybrid, the ActiveHybrid X6, in the United States last week. Getting only 19 miles per gallon on the highway, the vehicle is hardly fuel efficient, and BMW says it has not given up on diesels.
Ian Robertson, BMW’s Munich-based board member for sales and marketing, was flanked by both vehicles at the Los Angeles auto show when he presented an upbeat assessment of the company’s prospects, including “a clear increase of retail sales in November,” followed by “further solid growth” in December and “a relatively moderate sales decline in a range of 10 to 15 percent for the whole year of 2009.”
The full hybrid X6 is no economy car: BMW claims it’s the most powerful hybrid in the world, with 485 horsepower from a turbocharged V-8 complemented by two electric motors. The ActiveHybrid X6 can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 5.4 seconds. The performance emphasis denies the vehicle any kind of fuel economy breakthrough: it achieves 17 miles a gallon in the city and 19 on the highway.
The mild ActiveHybrid 7 is another barn burner, with 455 horsepower and a zero-to-60 time of 4.8 seconds. There is a lithium-ion battery pack, regenerative braking and automatic shutoff at stoplights — but fuel economy of 15 m.p.g. city and 22 highway is only 15 percent better than the 750i.
In an interview before his Los Angeles remarks, Mr. Robertson said he used the autobahn and a BMW hybrid (he didn’t say which one) to speed to work at his Munich office, then covered the last distance in fully electric, zero-emission mode. “We wanted our hybrid technology on the top-end vehicles,” he said. “My ride to work demonstrates why this is a great compromise in a very powerful car. There definitely will be more BMW hybrids, maybe on different model lines in the range.”
Mr. Robertson emphasized that hybrids were only one approach to achieving better fuel economy and environmental performance. Even before the hybrids were in place, he said, BMW had reduced its fleet carbon dioxide emissions.
Mr. Robertson repeated the refrain, familiar from several European carmakers, that diesel is a good alternative to hybrids. “Some 60 to 70 percent of our sales in Europe is diesel,” he said. “The American consumer has images of black smoke and poor performance, but that’s not true of modern diesels. We work very hard to communicate the benefits of diesels, but it’s fair to say that the U.S. has been slow in taking up the technology. But we’re making progress — 25 percent of X5 sales in the U.S. last month was diesel.”
BMW uses guerrilla tactics to get recalcitrant American consumers into diesels, including putting them into loaner fleets at dealerships. “When they bring them back and we tell them the car was a diesel with 600-mile range, they can’t believe it,” Mr. Robertson said.
In the future, Mr. Robertson added, auto performance will be determined not by displacement and number of cylinders, but by horsepower ratings. “We will get more performance out of smaller engines,” he said. And the new cars won’t be long in coming: Mr. Robertson said in his Los Angeles speech that between 2010-12, BMW would replace about 60 percent of its current fleet with all-new vehicles.
One of the next to appear, initially in concept form, will be a BMW-branded urban electric car, to complement the 600 Mini E battery vehicles the company has on the road. This mega-city car will be on the market by “the first half of the next decade,” he said.
Source: BMW: Hybrids Not the Only Green Answer
Ian Robertson, BMW’s Munich-based board member for sales and marketing, was flanked by both vehicles at the Los Angeles auto show when he presented an upbeat assessment of the company’s prospects, including “a clear increase of retail sales in November,” followed by “further solid growth” in December and “a relatively moderate sales decline in a range of 10 to 15 percent for the whole year of 2009.”
The full hybrid X6 is no economy car: BMW claims it’s the most powerful hybrid in the world, with 485 horsepower from a turbocharged V-8 complemented by two electric motors. The ActiveHybrid X6 can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 5.4 seconds. The performance emphasis denies the vehicle any kind of fuel economy breakthrough: it achieves 17 miles a gallon in the city and 19 on the highway.
The mild ActiveHybrid 7 is another barn burner, with 455 horsepower and a zero-to-60 time of 4.8 seconds. There is a lithium-ion battery pack, regenerative braking and automatic shutoff at stoplights — but fuel economy of 15 m.p.g. city and 22 highway is only 15 percent better than the 750i.
In an interview before his Los Angeles remarks, Mr. Robertson said he used the autobahn and a BMW hybrid (he didn’t say which one) to speed to work at his Munich office, then covered the last distance in fully electric, zero-emission mode. “We wanted our hybrid technology on the top-end vehicles,” he said. “My ride to work demonstrates why this is a great compromise in a very powerful car. There definitely will be more BMW hybrids, maybe on different model lines in the range.”
Mr. Robertson emphasized that hybrids were only one approach to achieving better fuel economy and environmental performance. Even before the hybrids were in place, he said, BMW had reduced its fleet carbon dioxide emissions.
Mr. Robertson repeated the refrain, familiar from several European carmakers, that diesel is a good alternative to hybrids. “Some 60 to 70 percent of our sales in Europe is diesel,” he said. “The American consumer has images of black smoke and poor performance, but that’s not true of modern diesels. We work very hard to communicate the benefits of diesels, but it’s fair to say that the U.S. has been slow in taking up the technology. But we’re making progress — 25 percent of X5 sales in the U.S. last month was diesel.”
BMW uses guerrilla tactics to get recalcitrant American consumers into diesels, including putting them into loaner fleets at dealerships. “When they bring them back and we tell them the car was a diesel with 600-mile range, they can’t believe it,” Mr. Robertson said.
In the future, Mr. Robertson added, auto performance will be determined not by displacement and number of cylinders, but by horsepower ratings. “We will get more performance out of smaller engines,” he said. And the new cars won’t be long in coming: Mr. Robertson said in his Los Angeles speech that between 2010-12, BMW would replace about 60 percent of its current fleet with all-new vehicles.
One of the next to appear, initially in concept form, will be a BMW-branded urban electric car, to complement the 600 Mini E battery vehicles the company has on the road. This mega-city car will be on the market by “the first half of the next decade,” he said.
Source: BMW: Hybrids Not the Only Green Answer
