BMW i3 & CFRP, Perfect Together

One of the main goals BMW had with the development of the Megacity car now known as the i3, was to reduce the weight as much as possible while providing a strong, safe passenger cell. The extensive use of carbon fiber reinforced plastics or CFRP, has allowed them to do just that. While the use of CFRP isn't a new idea in the automotive industry, using it as extensively as BMW is on the i3 is groundbreaking. It's been written that by using CFRP as extensively as they are, it has cut the weight of the vehicle by as much as 700lbs. This will allow BMW to use less of the expensive batteries and still hit their target 100 mile range. That will also reduce cost and further reduce weight since the batteries are also heavy. The above video talks about how BMW is using CFRP and references the i3 a couple times.

Video of the i3 in Cold Weather Testing Shows up on Youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9GDztzJEvo&feature=player_embedded

BMW Chief Designer Adrian Van Hooydonk Talks About The New MINI-E Scooter Concept

Adrian Van Hooydonk is BMW's chief designer and is generally regarded as on of the best in the automotive industry. Adrian talked a few minuted to describe the new MINI-E scooter concept in the video posted below.

It is a line of electric scooters that were recently introduced at the Paris Auto Show. Adrian and his design team came up with three different designs, one of them shares the MINI-E color combination and subtly design characteristics.  Personally, I think they all look great and if they can deliver the 65 miles per charge that I have read and not be too expensive, then I think they would sell well, especially in urban areas. This further confirms BMW's commitment to electric mobility and that they are proactively thinking out of the box for ways to meet then needs of efficient, low emission personal transportation.

Chillin With Kia Soul in Hamsterdam !

Energy Independence Isn't a New Idea

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
An Energy-Independent Future
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

A recent video from The Daily Show where Jon Stewart points out how all we have been getting from the past eight presidents is rhetoric and empty promises. Why should we think President Obama will do any better? We need to demand more from our leaders. Status quo will not work any more when we are talking about our energy needs and dependence. I think battery electric vehicles are a huge step in the right direction. Hopefully the current movement will continue to gain steam as cars like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf hit the market this year. Other electric cars like the BMW Megacity will follow shortly after. We can break the grip that the oil industry has on the world if we continue to invest in and improve battery electric cars.

"BMW E Mobility" video is posted on YouTube and #250 and I are the main characters

Back on March 7th I reported that BMW sent a film crew from Germany to film me and the car for three days. It is part of a long term project that will chronicle the shift from internal combustion engines to electric cars so this will  take years to complete but when it's finished, I'll be part of the documentary as one of the early adopters during the research phase of electric cars.

The film crew from TVT productions put together a quick 4 minute video clip to show the executives at BMW and they liked it do it was posted on You Tube. The video above is the four minute clip.

#250 and I are featured in a NY Times Video!

Stefania Rousselle was the video journalist assigned to do the video production.

Last Sunday I spent basically the whole day with Stefania Rousselle of the New York Times shooting video of me and the car. Stefania said the Times wanted to look at the car from two perspectives; living with the car in a suburban environment verses a city environment. Since I live in rural Chester, NJ I was chosen to give the suburban perspective and Adam Moore, who also has a MINI-E and lives in NYC was chosen to give the city life perspective. The video came out very nice, but how much detail can you really go into in 5 minutes? It would be really nice to explore the issues of both environments in a 30 minute documentary type production. I know Stefania has enough footage to put something like this together, she must have recorded at least 4 or 5 hours of video between the both of us, so maybe she'll do it in her spare time(If she ever gets any)...It was a lot of work to see only a few minutes of video, but I guess that's how this business works, you can never record too much. One thing I did take out of the experience, when you have a wireless mic on you all day, you can't forget it or you could say something that's not necessarily meant to be heard, but we won't get into that....
Click on the link below to view the video:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/03/27/automobiles/1247467462636/driving-an-electric-wave.html

Even the Fuhrer had EV problems!

Who knew?