Automotive News Europe - March 2013 - 12

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

QA

AUTOMAKERS

BMW bets on new
tech to stay No. 1

Europe presents emissions challenge, r&d boss says

B

MW Group is facing a number of
challenges as it aims to hold off rivals
Audi and Mercedes-Benz and remain
the world’s largest premium automaker.
It must find ways to continue boosting
sales while reducing fuel consumption
and emissions across its products. Leading BMW’s technology push is r&d boss
Herbert Diess, who this year is overseeing the launch of the i3 electric vehicle as
well as the introduction of a new frontwheel-drive architecture and modular
engine family. Diess talked with Automotive News Europe Editor Luca Ciferri on
the technical challenges facing BMW.
By 2016, BMW Group plans global
annual sales of 2 million vehicles,
including the Mini brand. How many
vehicles will have your new frontwheel-drive architecture?
Today, rear-wheel drive represents slightly
more than a million. As to fwd, we currently only have the Mini range with sales
of about 300,000 units. In the next few
years, the share of smaller vehicles in
BMW Group sales worldwide will increase:
40 percent within five years is not unrealistic [from below 30 percent now]. We
will be offering those vehicles with front-,
four-wheel and hybrid drive systems.
Rear-wheel drive, however, will remain the
BMW Group’s most favored drive system.
BMW has a third vehicle architecture
for the low-emission i vehicles called
LifeDrive. This is an aluminum chassis with a carbon reinforced plastic
body -- could it be used for conventional powertrain models?
LifeDrive is really an architecture for new
drivetrains, mostly electric and plug-in
hybrid based. It doesn’t make sense to
use that kind of architecture for conventional cars. We think in electric and
plug-in cars it makes sense because we
can reduce the size of the battery, which
is the most expensive component in the
car. If I can reduce the weight of the car
proportionately, I can reduce the size of
the battery and the battery is even more
expensive than the carbon fiber.

12

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In conventional cars you already use
carbon fiber, for example on the roofs
of the M models. Will this increase?
Yes. We will identify more parts where
it makes sense to use carbon fiber. Future body structures will mix aluminum,
steel and carbon. But it will be a while
before we use carbon at the same large
scale at which we currently use steel
and aluminum.
The new family of modular three-,
four- and six-cylinder engines will
become the largest within the BMW
Group, powering about 1.5 million of
your 2 million sales planned in 2020.
When will the first engine debut?
Next year. A three-cylinder unit will be
the first application.
Which model will be first?
The BMW i8.
Will future V-8 and V-12 engines be
spun off from this new engine family?
Mechanically there will be not many
common parts, but the engines will be
closely related in terms of technology.
They will have very similar combustion
chamber design and a common variable
valve timing technology.
Will V-8s and V-12s disappear?
We still see a market for gasoline V-8s
and V-12s, so we do not have any plans
to abandon them.
Could we see a BMW V-8 diesel again?
No, our six-cylinder diesel engine with
three turbos is fantastic. It’s lighter,
but has the same torque and is a very
responsive engine.
BMW will offer a small engine to
extend the i3 EV’s range. Isn’t this
a bit of contradiction for a “born
electric” model?
The optional range extender will almost
double the range of the BMW i3. We
do not think that a substantial share
of customers will really need the range
extender. It is more of an issue for those

Meet BMW tech boss
❚ NAME: Herbert Diess
❚ TITLE: Board member for r&d, BMW Group
❚ AGE: 54
❚ BASED: Munich
❚ MAIN CHALLENGE: To keep BMW
Group ahead of Audi and Mercedes in global
sales, while reducing vehicle emissions.

who have not yet had a chance to use an
electric car. After a few days, they usually discover that a base range of 160km
is sufficient to limit recharging to about
two times a week. In most cases where
people first think they need a range
extender it actually never is used.
BMW envisions i3 buyers using the
car in battery-only mode for urban
daily commuting and the car’s range
extender for occasional longer trips.
Could someone use the range extender on a daily basis?
The range extender is not intended for
daily use. It’s for situations when the
driver needs to extend the range of
the vehicle to reach the next charging
station. Therefore, the i3 probably won’t
be the choice for customers with a need
for an extended range. A plug-in hybrid
would be a more suitable solution for
those customers. For a plug-in hybrid, I
would say the target range should be far
enough so that recharging isn’t needed
more than twice a week when using the
car in urban surroundings.

MARCH 2013
http://www.autonewseurope.com
Automotive News Europe - March 2013

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