BMW gets "Born Electric" on tour, lays out electric vehicle, carbon fiber plans

For the Los Angeles Auto Show next week, BMW will show off a new i3 concept – "admittedly a tease," we were told – and not some sort of plug-in i4, as had been rumored. While we won't be seeing the production version of the city electric, the good news is that each iteration of the concept does bring us closer to the production version. For example, the i3 on display in New York as part of BMW's "Born Electric" tour last week still had glass doors. It's pretty obvious that the production version won't keep this feature. The new interior (first seen at the recent Paris Motor Show) is also more in line with what will be on sale a year from now. The message here? BMW is getting real with its i line of electric vehicles (EVs).

BMW's first two EV programs – the Mini E and the Active E – were both glorified test programs, but now BMW will want to sell larger numbers of plug-in vehicles, with the i3 due in late 2013 and the i8 in the first half of 2014. The clearest sign that BMW is serious is the carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) LifeDrive body that was on display in New York. After all, you don't start putting seat anchors into body shells if you're not planning on having people actually ride in them some day.

As you can see, there is no B-pillar in the i3. That speaks to the strength that CFRP offers, but it also saves weight. And that's a really big deal when you start dealing with plug-in powertrains. In a straight comparison, CFRP is roughly 30 percent lighter than aluminum and 50 percent lighter than steel. For the i3, BMW said that a traditional body would be around 660 pounds heavier. Using CFRP, BMW can thus introduce a gas-electric (or pure electric) powertrain, which includes the heavy battery pack. CFRP even performs great in a crash, since it's really a tiny net and so can absorb more collision energy than hard materials like steel.

The i3 will be available with a range-extender as an option as soon as it goes on sale.

Someone at BMW even gave these parts a clever name: LifeDrive. The "life" part refers to the body, where the passengers, um, live, and the "drive" refers to the powertrain. Like skateboard vehicles, the drive can stay the same (or similar) while the life model is changed. As you can see in the picture for the i3 LifeDrive above (and here), BMW has left room for a range extender. This is because the i3 will be available with a range-extender as an option as soon as it goes on sale, should buyers think a pure electric i3 not fit their needs. Things like cost were left unspoken. All we know for now is that the i3 will be "below the 5 Series" in price.

Another aspect of BMW's i project are a suite of mobility apps. Like other automakers, BMW is realizing not everyone wants to own a car, but we do want to move around. To that end, BMW has a car-sharing app,DriveNow, and a parking app called ParkNow, which attempts to minimize the approximately 30 percent of city driving that is just people looking for a parking spot. There is also MyCityWay, Park At My House, Embark (a public transportation app) and a partnership with Chargepoint. It's a brave new world.

Source: Autoblog Green