An electric vehicle from BMW in 2013? What ever happened to the MINI E and ActiveE?
BMW says that it never intended to manufacture and sell the electric MINI and the newer electric BMW 1 Series Coupé (called the ActiveE). These vehicles have been used to trial the electric car technology that will be used in the future. 'Project i' is the name given to a think tank made up of some of BMW's smartest boffins and they have been charged with the task of figuring out how to make electric vehicles interesting, practical and desirable.
So after all that research and development, resulting in two different electric cars BMW has decided to start from scratch?
Well yes. The firm is pretty insistent that it never intended to make an electric MINI for production but you can't help thinking that it might have if it could get the packaging right. Even the more spacious 1 Series hasn't been deemed suitable. BMW is saying that converting a standard car to work as an electric vehicle just doesn't work and that the best strategy is to build the car around the technology - not try to wedge the technology into an existing car.
So what about this Megacity then? Why the stupid name and what is it?
The name comes from mega cities, cities with vast populations such as Tokyo, New York and London and it is places like this BMW sees the new car primarily calling home and offering a solution to, in some cases, a new breed of drivers. This will be an electric car that might be bought by people who would never have considered a car before.
Ok, save the spin, what we do know about it?
We have seen a sketch and we know that it will be around the same size as the current MINI. It will be a sub-brand of BMW, in the same way that the M-division is. We know that it doesn't have a B-pillar and since it has rear seats we are guessing two rear-hinged doors will be added to allow access to the back seats.
The car will be built on an aluminium platform and will feature a carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) body shell. This material, which you will have seen on the roof of a BMW M3 before, will serve to offset the added weight of the batteries, which was the reason the MINI E became so lardy. This CFRP is 50 per cent lighter than steel and 30 per cent lighter than aluminium, yet is super strong and will protect the occupants in the similar way to a Formula 1 car's crash cell does.
MINI E was a rocket, is this one likely to be fast?
Probably. The Megacity will be rear-wheel drive, not to make it a driver's car as such, but BMW tells us this makes for easier packaging of the interior, allowing better space for people and luggage and making the car better in a crash too. The lithium ion battery cells will provide 110kw (150hp) of power and there will just be one single gear. Top speed will be 150km/h: BMW reckons it doesn't need to go faster and wouldn't without adding extra gears.
And what about the electric car's Achilles' heel, range?
Having trialled the MINI E already, BMW says that a range of 160 kilometres is good, but not perfect and that just a little more will suit almost 100 per cent of urban dwellers, so you can expect that it will reach this target, although it isn't ruling out adding a small range extender petrol engine in order to do so.
Right, so if the packaging on MINI E was wrong, why did BMW not just make a carbon-fibre car that looks like the MINI, instead of making a new sub-brand?
Eh. Erm. Next question!
Has this potential or is it just a brand reacting to market circumstances?
You could argue that BMW spent so much time telling us about hydrogen that it seems odd that it has suddenly come over all electric, but hydrogen is still in its plans for the future, though it seems to be a bit further away. Having driven the MINI E, which is a hoot and has been trialled very successfully, you know that this new car will be worth paying attention to. Watch this space.