BMW is expanding its fleet of vehicles with eDrive plug-in hybrid drive in 2016 an onwards. This year, the portfolio is already ranging from compact to luxury cars – from 225xe Active Tourer and 330e, to the higher-end X5 xDrive40e and 740Le.
In the coming years more and more models will be supplemented by an additional electric drive until eventually all BMW families will have at least one plug-in hybrid. The next steps on the road to full hybridization of the BMW fleet will include the upcoming G30 5 Series and the G01 X3.
“Our cadence will be about one (plug-in variant) per quarter,” said Richard Steinberg, spokesman for BMW’s electrification program in North America to PostBulletin. “Proud i3 owners can go full electric in all vehicle classes.”
The hybridization won’t stop with the BMW brand. The MINI and Rolls-Royce cars will also be affected by the eDrive strategy. The technology package is now designed so that it can be transferred with little effort and low costs from one model to another. All new models are already designed from the beginning of development to be easily integrated at a later date with a lithium-ion battery and the additional electric motor.
Especially in the U.S. and Japan – as well as an increasing number of European markets – there are attractive discounts for hybrid drivers who are also allowed to use bus lanes or even – for example – are allowed to park for free in big cities.
Automakers such as Nissan, General Motors, and Hyundai have a more sporadic approach to electrification, offering one or two plug-in models. A more direct competitor is Mercedes, which will offer up to 10 plug-in hybrids in the US by 2017.
By 2020, sales of the BMW i division should increase to more than 100,000 vehicles per year – together with plug-in hybrids.
Can you write an article on hybrid platforms vs full eletric? I seriously can’t understand why BMW doesn’t focus on all eletric cars when Teslas are being so sucessfull.
New weight saving technologies from BMW + big batteries = serious Tesla competitor
Electric vehicles (batteries only) are economical nonsense. Im not going to spend my time on long charging car. Even 25 minutes is too long. I prefer tank hydrogen in 3-4 minutes and have full range. Batteries have sense only in hybrids.
Do you know how much hydrogen costs per KG? It’s basically like this:
$hydrogen >>>>> $gas > $electricity
Also people tend to charge their EVs overnight or at work when the car is parked anyway. Yes, that doesn’t cover road trips.
“Do you know how much hydrogen costs per KG? It’s basically like this:
$hydrogen >>>>> $gas > $electricity” – are you sure?
“Also people tend to charge their EVs overnight or at work when the car is parked anyway. Yes, that doesn’t cover road trips.” – you have only one gas station in your city? i have at least 4 gas stations on the way from my job to home.
Synthetic fuels from audi is on the way. It will be interesting
“Do you know how much hydrogen costs per KG? It’s basically like this:
$hydrogen >>>>> $gas > $electricity” – if we accept your logic you should use smartphone instead PC or laptop because PC and laptop use and cost more energy.
If we accept your logic:
We should refuel our smartphones and PCs with hydrogen because they would be recharged faster. Let’s completely ignore all other aspects such as cost, safety, packaging, and inability to locate a hydrogen station vs the ease of locating a common electrical outlet.
A tank of hydrogen can take up to 20 minutes to pump, some aren’t even capable of delivering a full tank because they don’t have the proper pressurization. My i3 charges over night, it takes 30 seconds to plug it in, and you don’t even notice how long it takes its just full every time I get in it. Or if I do plug-in at a public station it’s usually at the place I intended to go, so another 30 seconds, and it can charge while I’m shopping or working. If you don’t have an electric car, you can’t criticize owning one.
So what if im driving more than 100 kilometers daily? i dont want to stop every 100 km for one hour charging. This is nosense.
Then you wouldn’t get an electric car that only has a range of 100km, was that a serious question? Though I don’t know of any that have such a short range and the range is increasing every year.
So even if my car have 200km range i must wait year for more comfortable contidions? it’s joke? i need car for work and other things. Not for showing off that im “eco” and trendy. I will drive petrol car as long as is more sensible that other type of drive. I hope that BMW release FuelCell models. Audi is working on Audi H-Trone FuellCell SUV so BMW will do this same.
I certainly hope that BMW does not do hydrogen and if they do, certainly not because Audi is working on a concept of one. The charging “issue” for electrics will be improved along with increased range, it’s just a matter of time.
Well said: “The charging “issue” for electrics will be improved along with increased range, it’s just a matter of time.” – for FuelCell cars range increase also. And price of hydrogen will fall with increase popularity and new production technologies. Do you think that only batteries are going forward? BMW testing many cars with FuelCell so i dont have good news for you. More and more car manufactures announce their own FuelCell cars eg. Audi, Honda, Lexus.
I do think Hydrogen is moving forward but I just don’t see the point. I can already charge my car at my house and anywhere with electricity, the infrastructure is already there. With hydrogen the infrastructure is not there and it inherently requires electricity to be made, so why wouldn’t I just use that electricity to charge my car instead?
Time is money. I will pay and have full range in 5 minutes than to be able to charge car in my house. You prefer Batteries i respect this but i prefer Hydrogen. I think that in future car manufacturers will offer three drive types: Synthetic Fuels (petrol, diesel), FuelCell and Battery. Maybe this is the best way? everyone can choose what they want
But where will you do that? As I pointed out the infrastructure isn’t there, the cost to refill will be much more than recharging, the cost to get a hydrogen station at your home will be expensive, and charging times are going down.
I highly doubt that synthetic fuels will be a viable option any time soon and other than older vehicles, why would you want a ICE vehicle? They are much more complex and require more maintenance.
Maybe now there is no infrastructure but this will change. Remember that few years ago there was not infrastructure to charge electric cars and now it is.
Main BMW designer (or someone else i dont remember) said that sports cars like BMW M in future will be hybrid cars (propably there on BMWBlog was article about this) and there synthetic fuels will be usefull. Many people like ICE cars because they like modify and tuning their own cars. So synthetic fuel is the best way for these people because these fuels are clean and these people can enjoy their own cars.
And synthetic fuels have a very important adventage they may be used in the current engines without changing anything
That isn’t bad, it is still less then the total range of an i3, you could do even better in an i3 REx. And if a Tesla Model S is too pricey for you, the Chevy Bolt would more then cover that distance. I can get my entire day done in my i3, and I can do it on one charge from home. The Bolt would make that even easier with its 321 km range, and next month Tesla is supposed to debut their 3-Series equivalent the Model 3 if you want to wait for that. There is even a rumor that Tesla will debut an X3/X4 competitor along side the Model 3.
I dont like tesla’s interior. The biggest problem of these cars are batteries. I prefer liquid fuel because “time is money”. Sometimes i need go to work in the middle of the night and if i forget connect my car to charger i will have problem. I respect that you like batteries but i prefer FuelCell.
Not going to get a cell phone either because it takes too long to charge?
Hidrogen has plenty of problems, eletric is far superior on the long run: http://cleantechnica.com/2014/06/04/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-about-not-clean/
And a battery swap solution as Tesla’s developing would take as long and cost as much as filling the tank with gas.
So battery cars dont have problems? lol. If you already mentioned about hydrogen problems and tesla: http://jalopnik.com/tesla-model-s-burns-to-a-crisp-during-supercharging-in-1750581400
Didn’t say they didn’t have problems, nothing is perfect.
Are you seriously using a burning model s as an argument against batteries? How many combustion engine cars burn for various reasons?
All things taken into account, batteries are far superior ro hidrogen.
Im not using burning model s as an argument against batteries. I using burning model s as an argument that batteries are not “the best”.
“All things taken into account, batteries are far superior ro hidrogen.” – can you show me arguments? batteries have problem with high temperature. If temperature is too high your performance drops. Maybe race respond us which drive type of drive is better? Maybe 24h Le Mans? i want to see how tesla recharging batteries when Hydrogen car doing next lap
Does that even matter? Sure, battery performance drops at higher speeds and don’t perform as well when overheating, but what do you think is more important, accelaration at higher speeds or acceleration at lower speeds? Drive the car in the city and you’ll leave everything behind.
And we’re talking about cars for regular people, not racing cars! Most people don’t give a fu** about racing and racing sports surely don’t account for a big part of automobile polution.
And search for hydrogen problems on Google and see them for yourself.
That project (battery swap) has been cancelled because of low interest.
I’ve been wondering what’s going on at BMW too, they launched BMW-i, and now everything badged “eDrive” burns gas. They aren’t as committed as they looked when I bought my i3 last year.
It’s very confusing, I agree. But maybe that is what BMW wants. And the i5 is taking an eternity to develop. I can’t understand why.
I don’t understand it either. It’s clear eletric is the future, anyone who argues against it should do a little research.
The problem is, companies like BMW which sell mostly gas powered cars make a lot of profit form other activities (repair,…) they wouldn’t make with eletric cars.
BMW is my favourite auto brand, but they’re disappointing me in this regard and may end up losing a big slice of the market to Tesla if they don’t catch up fast, along with all the other auto brands.
Do you know that synthetic benzin and diesel are as clean as electric cars? So if clean “fuels” are future that syntethic fuels are also future.
At what price? I can get an electric car right now, I cannot go and fill up on synthetic benzin or diesel.
If you can buy electric cars right now dont worry about peotrol price because you dont need it. You can but electric cars right now but can you charge battery in 5 minutes? i can refuel my car in 5 minutes right now. I cannot recharge eletric cars in 5 minutes.
Let’s get to the bottom of this argument, as it seems to be the only one that keeps popping up against BEVs. Recharging of a BEV does not have to happen in the same way as refuelling an ICE. An ICE needs to refuel after every X miles on the odometer. A BEV only requires the driver to actually spend time for recharging during longer trips – more than 250 miles, and probably more than 500 miles 5 years from now (given progress on battery energy density). So when someone does undertake trips of more than 250 miles (or more than 500 miles in the future), who would not need a sanitary stop or a drink or meal? Definitely 99,9% of sensible people would need a decent stop when doing 500 miles or more.
DC fast charging infrastructure along the highways in Europe is already being upgraded to 150 kW (Tesla superchargers already have 135 kW) and plan is to go to 300-350 kW thereafter. That means that even long range cars will be able to recharge sufficiently on a longer trip in 15-20 minutes. So the few people on this planet (and they will surely exist) who would claim they do NOT require a 15-20 minute stop every 300 miles, are probably not the most important customer segment for major companies like BMW, Mercedes, Audi to base their product strategy on. Hence why there is no argument to require recharging of BEVs in 3 min.
BTW – going to a hydrogen station, filling up, paying and coming back will take a longer than 3 minutes – assuming someone finds a business case to install them as densely as gas stations today (@ $ 3 million each)!
You’d think Tesla having entered sports sedan territory, BMW would want to rise up, and compete with their sports sedan knowledge. But no, there are only rumors, and statements that they won’t even show a concept until 2020. I suspect their deal with Toyota may have drastically slowed electric car development, Toyota may have insisted in their contract.
I still think of Tesla being a California thing. Not saying they are a bad car, though I’ve never thought simply sticking a massive battery into a really heavy car was that ingenious, but It’s going to take for Tesla to steal a chunk of 3-er sales before BMW will seriously react. ICE is massively established, things won’t change overnight. 2020 is not that far away.
They’re already changing. The Model S is selling almost as much as the S Class and more than the A8 and 7 series. Same thing will happen to the 3 series when the model 3 starts selling.
Tesla are cagey about their figures, but they *expect* to deliver 50-52,000 cars in 2015 (their 2015 annual report is out next week) – which certainly puts them on par with the likes of the 7-er, although it’s worth noting that the F01/02 EOP figures had dropped off my about 30% when Tesla beat them —– with a car that also heftily undercuts the 7-er on price — and the 50-52,000 figure includes Model X also… so really I don’t think your statement tells the whole story.
And sorry, but if you think the model 3 will sell more than the 3-er when it starts selling, you’re crazy. Tesla’s quality and finances are already slipping, producing 50,000 units across 2 models, and you think they will beat the ~400,000 (est) unit’s of the 3 series that BMW sold in 2015? They simply won’t be able to do it, even if there was demand…
.. crucially, they have to wait for capacity, demand and infrastructure… and whilst I’m sure Tesla will get a hold on these things, it will not happen overnight, and in that period of time, every other semi-premium/premium automaker will be launching their own competitors, and these are competitors with established global presence, dealer, sales, service, parts, distribution etc. etc. etc. networks.
I’m not saying Tesla will fail… but have faith, at the point the market dictates a high volume switch to Electric only, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Lexus… and whoever else, will be ready.
They’re already building their gigafactory which will allow them to produce at a much faster rate.
BMW and the rest better react fast, or else they’re gonna suffer and lag behind.
Furthermore, Apple is already building their eletric car as well (and BMW is the one helping, alongside the ex-Tesla engineers they employed). One more strong competitor for the EV market.
I want to buy a quality, full EV BMW in the future, but if they don’t start offering alternatives to Tesla then the Tesla will be my choice.
That’s fair enough, I’d never disagree that EV may suite some people, or that BMW should offer one.
I personally don’t think the whole market is as keen to switch to EV only as you are though. Not sure about the USA, but over here 50% of journeys are less than 25 miles and the average journey distance per person per car per year is less than 10 miles, so actually they probably could switch to full EV, but why do that, when cars like the 330e will give you that kind of Pure EV motoring most of the time, but can also do the long distances without length re-charges. For me, these plug-in Hybrids are best the solution. I’ve racked up about 9000 miles since last June, yet typically drive less than 5 miles a day, but when I do have to cover long distances, it’s been 400-500 miles per journey. I don’t want to be messing around finding charging stations or hanging around too long.
Whilst I’m sure many people on this site can quote their personal usage preference, and they’ll all be just as valid as yours and mine, I think BMW have been collecting a lot of data since the Mini-E and Active-E first hit the market up until now, on how people use their cars, and what the EV needs are, and I think they are currently catering for the majority wants and needs.
I agree that BMW should focus on satisfying most people needs, but focusing on niches isn’t bad either. In fact, it’s something BMW does very well and can concialiate with its core models. Models like the X4, X6, the upcoming X2 and the M models are all niche market cars, not the core of the brands offer.
Therefore, I think focusing more on the “i” brand while maintaining its petrol/diesel offer would be ideal.
A near future in which BMW offers plug-in hybrid alternatives to all its petrol/diesel models and expands the “i”brand to 4-6 models (preferably full EV) seems ideal to me, instead of continuing to focus on more and more “conventional” models while leaving the “i” division in the background and as a second plan.
I think that car automakers like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Hyundai and many other can cooperate in infrastructure building and i think that these car automakers prefer FuelCell drive type. FuelCell are so easy and fast to refuel like current fuels so people will not have to change their habits
“They’re already changing. The Model S is selling almost as much as the S
Class and more than the A8 and 7 series. Same thing will happen to the 3
series when the model 3 starts selling.” – in countries where tesla is selling well, electric cars have subsidies. And look for price for 7 Series, A8 and S Class and later look for tesla s price (even without subsidies). I can say that Ford Fiesta selling better that tesla s.
I know they have been testing with the X1 PHEV as well, but no word on that model for a 2016 release?
No, not yet. Will publish when I hear something
And what about the 5 Series Touring G31 ? Will BMW produce it in an hybrid version ?