Ok, it's important to note that they're not saying all cars will be true all-electric, but rather that they will all have at least some kind of electric assist to increase MPG across the fleet. Even so, that would be very difficult to pull off in just 10 years given how long car design and production cycles are. It's a commendable goal, though.
I think BMW has been working on technologies for electric cars for a very long time already, probably even longer than all-electric car manufacturers like Tesla have existed. In Munich you already see quite a lot of electric BMWs and charging stations, so the technology seems to be pretty mature as far as I can tell.
I think the main reason they did not make the transition to (partially) electric cars earlier is that they did not want to cannibalize their business with non-electric cars. Another point is the still-missing charging infrastructure and the (to my limited knowledge) lack of some universal standard for charging stations. The final point is that today potential buyers of electric cars still have many good alternatives that are as much or even more ecological than all-electric cars. If you look e.g. at the new models from Volkswagen or BMW, many of the smaller ones use 4 liters of gasoline / 100 km or less (i.e. > 71 MPG), which is pretty hard to beat in terms of eco-friendliness and efficiency considering that electricity is still much more expensive than gasoline in terms of energy / price.
One driving factor in the transition to partially electric cars might be that there are not many other possibilities left to further increase the efficiency of conventional engines. In fact, most of the increase in efficiency that we have seen in the last decade was not due to better thermodynamic design of the motor block but better control of e.g. the fuel injection through more advanced sensors and electronics. As this optimization path seems to have reached is maximum potential it probably makes a lot of sense to use electric motors to e.g. recover braking energy, which should shave off another few percent in fuel consumption (Toyota already proved the feasibility of this very successfully with their Prius series).
I think they're saying all powertrains are going to be electric. A i3/Volt model is way more efficient because it's not wasting any energy in idle mode like traditional model.
In Michigan the Big 3 are still funding hydrogen car projects and making primarily hybrids. Industry guys I know are not taking battery powered cars that seriously. They passed a law banning Tesla from having showrooms in the state.
95% of hydrogen is produced using natural gas reforming. Hydrogen is ostensibly a fossil fuel when you consider how we produce it at a commercial scale.
Most natural gas comes from fracking, which may be a major air polluter in addition to many other known problems.
I am looking at apartments to buy here in Sydney and not a single one has available power sockets in the car parking garage. Likewise at work. Which obviously makes charging impossible. The problem here is the chicken/egg situation. Building owners aren't going to install per bay power without cars. And people aren't going to buy cars they can't charge.
As land becomes more and more expensive housing density is increasing worldwide. This means fewer houses will have dedicated garages/driveways and apartments are going to become more popular. This increases the chances that your car will not be within distance of a power socket.
Hydrogen doesn't have this problem. It works exactly like petrol does today. It doesn't require much education or really any change in user behaviour. It is simply another nozzle at the gas station just like when LPG/Natural Gas was introduced.
Really really need nuclear power to actually make this a "clean" technology. And I hope we're paying attention to the environmental impact of lithium mining too while we're at it. And rare earth minerals.
I used to think this too, until solar started to take off unexpectedly. We will need nuclear in the long run, but at the moment, I don't think massive adoption is a necessity.
As for Lithium, even if Li-ion remains the best technology we have for the next ten years (which it might not be? [1]), we should be able to find better ways of mining Lithium [2], like electrolysis from seawater. After all, it's probably the most abundant metal in the universe.
Everytime I read a comment like this (claiming nuclear is clean, ignoring the atomic waste contaminating your land with radiation for the next hundreds of thousands of years, which is starting to become a severe problem for example here in Germany), I notice that the commenter is usually from the US. I wonder why this is?
For cars we don't really need nuclear power, rooftop photovoltaics are almost as cheap as coal and getting cheaper fast. Their main drawback is intermittency, but cars can charge overnight or in the office parking when the production of electricity exceeds the demand.
Furthermore, electric cars can be used as energy reservoirs during high demand periods.
No we don't. We need solar and batteries that can provide "car charging" for free or almost free, like what Tesla is doing for Model S.
Also, nuclear is not perfectly clean either. The reactor may produce clean energy, but everything else that is needed to power it and maintain it is not clean energy.
Even if we get electric cars (with good batteries) before the electric grid catches up to be more efficient, the fact that they're plugged into the grid means that we only have to upgrade the central power plants/distribution to help. It's a much better world where each vehicle needs improvement to make improvements.
I agree. Though to me the benefit is not so much to have a zero environmental impact. Even the cleanest energy (nuclear power, dams) have some environment costs (nuclear waste, destroying the eco system of a valley).
To me the biggest impact of moving to electric cars is to move the pollution (air+noise) away from where people live. And that benefit alone is certainly worth significant undesirable effects on areas where people do not live (mines, etc).
Cars are strangely enough one of the only energy usages we have right now that is not dependent on base load power. Inherently they must carry the energy they need with them, and therefore can store it from any time of day. So it'd be fine to supply them entirely with intermittent, variable sources like wind and solar, given sufficient total wattage.
The climate change deniers may be costing the US a chance to be a center an enormous future industry, clean tech.
The article says BMW's move is in anticipation of stricter environmental laws in the EU. The situation could give Europe or certain regions there a 'first-mover' advantage, if it hasn't already.
Once the 'Silicon Valley' or valleys of clean tech are established, where all the talent, capital, services and infrastructure are and where business is done over a beer/wine/etc, it's not going to suddenly shift to the US when Americans catch up on climate change issues, especially if Europe offers a large 'single market' for this technology. China could also be building an insurmountable lead.
To me it is obvious that the way to go would be to abstract out the power source by using an electric drivetrain regardless of the engine. When the car has electric motors connected directly to drive shafts you can eliminate lots of the mechanical linkage and you are also free to redesign and relocate the power source as you wish.
But, most importantly, once you accept the slight inefficiencies in converting energy to electricity and then to radial forces, you are free to experiment with whatever power source you like:
- use batteries like Tesla: you can simply fill with batteries any compartments of the body that you wish. The car runs as long as the batteries have charge.
- use fuel cells if those ever become viable.
- design a small, self-contained turbocharged diesel engine that runs at the optimum RPM to drive a generator when the batteries need charging: put it in the boot or the front bay, but you don't need to consider how it connects with the wheels mechanically, and it can be lighter and doesn't have to support a wide range of RPMs like current engines.
- or maybe linear generator engines powered by gasoline or diesel (like what Toyota has been developing) turn out to be optimal for mobile electricity generation for some period in the future.
- or maybe a low-cost turbine engine hooked to a generator like the Whisper concept car: the engine can burn nearly anything and provides high power output at high RPM that would otherwise be in the impractical range for a car.
But if you combine any power source and a small battery, that allows you to buffer energy and only use the combustion engine to occasionally recharge the battery. You can drive the rush hour traffic or a downtown route using mostly electric power only, and rely on the combustion engine to recharge the battery when parked (but not plugged in to mains) or while driving during longer trips. A reasonable compromise for range anxiety would be to drop down to limited power when the battery runs out and you need to rely on the combustion engine only. You could still reach your destination but at slower speeds.
Nevertheless, the options are quite unlimited. Buffering of energy is more useful than raw power in the future just like an Android phone is more useful than a desktop PC in the general case even if it's slower and runs only a day or so without charging. Only serious usage warrants desktop PCs with stationary power supplies: most online activities can be done with a low-power device that runs on energy buffered in the battery.
Good ideas but those different power plants all have very different coolong and exhaust requirements. Hard to design something that can adapt to all that.
I really wish that BMW would produce a low cost single seat city car that competed more directly with the Renault Twizzy. The i3 is great but for my needs it's honestly way too much and so too expensive.
Hmm I would love an electric car and the i8 is beautiful after seeing it local car dealer and drooling
but the price is incredible at north of €120K! you can buy an apartment/home here for that lol, and it wont depreciate as much
So in meantime i will continue to drive my decade old gaz guzling m-sports x5, i now wonder if should hold onto it another 10 years and keep in my garage, decades from now it could be a collectors item for those who want/nostalgic fpr v8 petrol muscle cars.
It's going to be interesting to see how car companies adapt to the stricter standards and whether people are willing to give up the speed and power to go electric.
I own a company making truck accessories. I recently purchased a 2009 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid because I think I can tweak the electric drive to produce a lot more power - My own version of Tesla's "Ludicrous Mode" for the Tahoe, electric backed up with the 6.0L V8. My target is 1000 hp, 500 from gas, 500 from electric (for a 1/4 mile at least). Just driving the truck unmodified, I am thinking that the marketing people for that vehicle did a bad job. It was panned in the press, but is very fun to drive.
Stock the truck can do 28 mph on electric only. Not bad for a 8 seat vehicle. Once I get done tweaking it, I should be able to drive full electric when I want ( I have a 5 mile commute!).
Personally, i am excited about all the good electric motors out there. It makes going faster really easy! and better on fuel!
I think going electric will not be "giving up speed and power". As a hardcore auto enthusiast, I think that people like me will be embracing electric to GET speed and power.
"The 93rd Running and 99th Anniversary of The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb Brought to you by Gran Turismo was won on Sunday, June 28th, 2015 by Rhys Millen in the electric powered and Latvian built Drive eO PP03. This historic win marked not only the first electric powered overall victory at the PPIHC but the first time an EV had defeated all internal combustion challenges in a head to head race."
Gasoline's advantage is not in speed and power; electric engines can produce quite enough torque, and get maximum speeds well above the legal and practical limits for highway driving.
It's in range and fast refueling on existing infrastructure - for example, the Tesla Model S gets only about 200-250 miles on a charge, after which it needs somewhere more than half an hour to recharge on a Supercharger. Compared to much cheaper gas-powered vehicles that can run 400 miles on a tank, and refuel in minutes, this is pretty bad, hence the BMW statement hedging the all-electric promise with things like range extenders and hybrid technology, rather than power-boosters of assorted types.
Electric is not slower or less powerful, electric's issue is the low energy density wrt petroleum fuels, so you need much more volume dedicated to batteries and you still get a much lower range. See the recent news about a hypermiler getting 452 miles out of a Model S (on 0-grade roads at 25mph), the hypermiling record on a production petroleum car is more than 1600 miles.
This is exacerbated by the much longer refueling times, a supercharger needs ~20mn for a 50% charge, an at-home 240V/40A does ~10%/hour.
[+] [-] mdorazio|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThePhysicist|10 years ago|reply
I think the main reason they did not make the transition to (partially) electric cars earlier is that they did not want to cannibalize their business with non-electric cars. Another point is the still-missing charging infrastructure and the (to my limited knowledge) lack of some universal standard for charging stations. The final point is that today potential buyers of electric cars still have many good alternatives that are as much or even more ecological than all-electric cars. If you look e.g. at the new models from Volkswagen or BMW, many of the smaller ones use 4 liters of gasoline / 100 km or less (i.e. > 71 MPG), which is pretty hard to beat in terms of eco-friendliness and efficiency considering that electricity is still much more expensive than gasoline in terms of energy / price.
One driving factor in the transition to partially electric cars might be that there are not many other possibilities left to further increase the efficiency of conventional engines. In fact, most of the increase in efficiency that we have seen in the last decade was not due to better thermodynamic design of the motor block but better control of e.g. the fuel injection through more advanced sensors and electronics. As this optimization path seems to have reached is maximum potential it probably makes a lot of sense to use electric motors to e.g. recover braking energy, which should shave off another few percent in fuel consumption (Toyota already proved the feasibility of this very successfully with their Prius series).
[+] [-] msoad|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmason|10 years ago|reply
http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/...
http://corporate.ford.com/microsites/sustainability-report-2...
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/07/30/fiat-chrysler-exec-future...
[+] [-] heygrady|10 years ago|reply
Most natural gas comes from fracking, which may be a major air polluter in addition to many other known problems.
http://energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-natural...
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2015/04/01/how-m...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/16/frackin...
[+] [-] sremani|10 years ago|reply
Fiat-Chrysler: upcoming Town and Country PHEV
Ford: C-Max, Fusion PHEVs.
What am I missing here?
[+] [-] threeseed|10 years ago|reply
As land becomes more and more expensive housing density is increasing worldwide. This means fewer houses will have dedicated garages/driveways and apartments are going to become more popular. This increases the chances that your car will not be within distance of a power socket.
Hydrogen doesn't have this problem. It works exactly like petrol does today. It doesn't require much education or really any change in user behaviour. It is simply another nozzle at the gas station just like when LPG/Natural Gas was introduced.
[+] [-] exabrial|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hliyan|10 years ago|reply
As for Lithium, even if Li-ion remains the best technology we have for the next ten years (which it might not be? [1]), we should be able to find better ways of mining Lithium [2], like electrolysis from seawater. After all, it's probably the most abundant metal in the universe.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Production
[+] [-] irrlichthn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amit_m|10 years ago|reply
Furthermore, electric cars can be used as energy reservoirs during high demand periods.
[+] [-] mtgx|10 years ago|reply
Also, nuclear is not perfectly clean either. The reactor may produce clean energy, but everything else that is needed to power it and maintain it is not clean energy.
[+] [-] simfoo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mayneack|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjelkeman-again|10 years ago|reply
http://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/20120310_nuclea...
[+] [-] cm2187|10 years ago|reply
To me the biggest impact of moving to electric cars is to move the pollution (air+noise) away from where people live. And that benefit alone is certainly worth significant undesirable effects on areas where people do not live (mines, etc).
[+] [-] jaggederest|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackuser|10 years ago|reply
The article says BMW's move is in anticipation of stricter environmental laws in the EU. The situation could give Europe or certain regions there a 'first-mover' advantage, if it hasn't already.
Once the 'Silicon Valley' or valleys of clean tech are established, where all the talent, capital, services and infrastructure are and where business is done over a beer/wine/etc, it's not going to suddenly shift to the US when Americans catch up on climate change issues, especially if Europe offers a large 'single market' for this technology. China could also be building an insurmountable lead.
[+] [-] gchokov|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] biehl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scintill76|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crystalgiver|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yason|10 years ago|reply
But, most importantly, once you accept the slight inefficiencies in converting energy to electricity and then to radial forces, you are free to experiment with whatever power source you like:
- use batteries like Tesla: you can simply fill with batteries any compartments of the body that you wish. The car runs as long as the batteries have charge.
- use fuel cells if those ever become viable.
- design a small, self-contained turbocharged diesel engine that runs at the optimum RPM to drive a generator when the batteries need charging: put it in the boot or the front bay, but you don't need to consider how it connects with the wheels mechanically, and it can be lighter and doesn't have to support a wide range of RPMs like current engines.
- or maybe linear generator engines powered by gasoline or diesel (like what Toyota has been developing) turn out to be optimal for mobile electricity generation for some period in the future.
- or maybe a low-cost turbine engine hooked to a generator like the Whisper concept car: the engine can burn nearly anything and provides high power output at high RPM that would otherwise be in the impractical range for a car.
But if you combine any power source and a small battery, that allows you to buffer energy and only use the combustion engine to occasionally recharge the battery. You can drive the rush hour traffic or a downtown route using mostly electric power only, and rely on the combustion engine to recharge the battery when parked (but not plugged in to mains) or while driving during longer trips. A reasonable compromise for range anxiety would be to drop down to limited power when the battery runs out and you need to rely on the combustion engine only. You could still reach your destination but at slower speeds.
Nevertheless, the options are quite unlimited. Buffering of energy is more useful than raw power in the future just like an Android phone is more useful than a desktop PC in the general case even if it's slower and runs only a day or so without charging. Only serious usage warrants desktop PCs with stationary power supplies: most online activities can be done with a low-power device that runs on energy buffered in the battery.
[+] [-] brc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Quequau|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tdkl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sschueller|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] yc1010|10 years ago|reply
but the price is incredible at north of €120K! you can buy an apartment/home here for that lol, and it wont depreciate as much
So in meantime i will continue to drive my decade old gaz guzling m-sports x5, i now wonder if should hold onto it another 10 years and keep in my garage, decades from now it could be a collectors item for those who want/nostalgic fpr v8 petrol muscle cars.
[+] [-] fictivmade|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gregpilling|10 years ago|reply
Stock the truck can do 28 mph on electric only. Not bad for a 8 seat vehicle. Once I get done tweaking it, I should be able to drive full electric when I want ( I have a 5 mile commute!).
Personally, i am excited about all the good electric motors out there. It makes going faster really easy! and better on fuel!
I think going electric will not be "giving up speed and power". As a hardcore auto enthusiast, I think that people like me will be embracing electric to GET speed and power.
See also Rhys Millens 1300 hp all electric Pikes Peak racer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMjsAMlXGBI
"The 93rd Running and 99th Anniversary of The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb Brought to you by Gran Turismo was won on Sunday, June 28th, 2015 by Rhys Millen in the electric powered and Latvian built Drive eO PP03. This historic win marked not only the first electric powered overall victory at the PPIHC but the first time an EV had defeated all internal combustion challenges in a head to head race."
[+] [-] azernik|10 years ago|reply
It's in range and fast refueling on existing infrastructure - for example, the Tesla Model S gets only about 200-250 miles on a charge, after which it needs somewhere more than half an hour to recharge on a Supercharger. Compared to much cheaper gas-powered vehicles that can run 400 miles on a tank, and refuel in minutes, this is pretty bad, hence the BMW statement hedging the all-electric promise with things like range extenders and hybrid technology, rather than power-boosters of assorted types.
[+] [-] msoad|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] masklinn|10 years ago|reply
This is exacerbated by the much longer refueling times, a supercharger needs ~20mn for a 50% charge, an at-home 240V/40A does ~10%/hour.
[+] [-] njharman|10 years ago|reply
Electircs are faster and way more powerful (torque) than almost all ICEs until you get over the speed limit(s) or an S curve.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] london888|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] crystalgiver|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geeklodhi|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] thirdreplicator|10 years ago|reply