Posts Tagged by BMW
A Collaboration on Fuel Cell Vehicles — But Exactly Whose Interests Are At Stake? Not Yours.
| December 18, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Here’s an article that describes a collaboration between GM and BMW on fuel cell vehicles.
Wow, that’s remarkable. Just when I had started to trust the car companies based on the sincerity of Nissan/Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn and his people who build and promote the LEAF, I see this. A few basic points:
• The oil companies are the main supporters of the hydrogen economy. They see hydrogen as a mechanism for them to continue to retain a service station which will continue to provide the consumer with something they can pump. Electricity, on the other hand, is ubiquitous.
• Creating hydrogen suffers a 4:1 efficiency issue. I.e., generating hydrogen in a renewable way requires four times the number of solar panels that would be needed to make the electricity to put into my battery. Read More
BMW’s Electric Vehicle Program: Still Stuck in Neutral?
| May 9, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I was amused at the remarks of BMW’s spokesperson Tom Kowaleski when I talked to him two years ago about the company’s initial foray into the EV market with the Mini E. He snickered when I asked if he’d consider sponsoring the website I had recently joined as a junior partner, EVWorld.com. “Craig, I have about 800 of these cars to lease, the same year I’ll be trying to sell a thousand times that number with internal combustion engines. Where do you think my attention is?” he chuckled.
I got the joke instantly. These guys didn’t get where they are by taking their eyes off the ball financially. And here, it looks like BMW’s attention hasn’t moved too far in the intervening 24 months. According to Greenbeat,
“The ActiveE isn’t going directly on the market, like the Nissan Leaf or the Tesla Roadster — instead BMW will lease about 700 cars out for $500 a month over 2 years. …. BMW said the car can accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour in about 9 seconds. The Nissan Leaf, another plug-in electric car, can accelerate from 0 to 60 in about 7 seconds based on independent testing. BMW is known as a manufacturer of performance vehicles, so some critics question why the company didn’t create an electric car with more power….”
Sorry, guys, maybe I’m missing something, but it still doesn’t seem like you’re trying too hard.
What’s Wrong Inside Toyota?
| July 29, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
I spoke with a couple of the people promoting the 2012 release of the Prius plug-in hybrid yesterday at the 2010 Plug-In show. Gosh, this seems like a strange concept. Its all-electric range? 13 miles. The net effect for the typical customer? A bit better gas mileage. “This is what Prius customers want – a more efficient Prius,” one guy told me.
I was incredulous. Maybe they want that now, pal. But do you honestly think they’re going to want that two years from now, when they can have a LEAF, an I-MiEV, a Mini E, a Volt, or half a dozen other EVs of various sizes and types? You’re going to ask them to go through the exercise of plugging their car in, just to get slightly better gas mileage?
This is a truly terrible idea. I have to think something has gone terribly off the rails there. Unless they make a major change, I predict that Toyota’s decade 2005 – 2015 will be the biggest single meltdown in automotive history.
