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BMW is putting some big numbers to its electrification efforts. At a media event in Munich on Thursday ahead of next week's Frankfurt Motor Show, the automaker announced plans to bring to market at least 25 electrified vehicles by 2025 -- 13 of which will be fully electric. The new models are expected to be marketed through all of BMW AG's brands, including Mini and Rolls-Royce, but may also include BMW Motorrad, its motorbike division.
Most interestingly, Harald Krüger, BMW chairman of the board, revealed Tuesday that his company will show a four-door, pure-electric concept car in Frankfurt under its i sub-brand. The car will be designed to slot between its i3 electric urban runabout and i8 plug-in hybrid sports coupe. Few concrete details were revealed about the coming show car, but reading between the lines, it's clear that BMW is incubating a Tesla competitor -- likely a rival for the Model 3. The car's design is expected to be influenced by the Vision Next 100 (shown below), a futurethink concept vehicle designed to commemorate BMW's centennial.
Word from inside the executive circles at Ford is that they're gearing up to chase Tesla, too. How long before the last internal combustion engine production car rolls off the line, 5 years, 10 years, or 15?
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Saturday September 09 2017, @11:52PM (3 children)
At least 20+ years. Unless you can create the same or better performance it will probably be quite some time. I think this topic was talked about previously in some thread and I'll say what I, probably, said then. It can probably "replace" gas cars in the cities and suburbs a lot sooner but out in the country it just won't work as well as it currently stands and this is where the 20+, or even 30+, years thing comes into mind.
There are performance issues, sort of like with spaceships and air crafts -- how much fuel do you need, weight of fuel, need more fuel and it scales up. It is most likely similar for Long Haul trucks and other large rigs, the weight of space taken up by batteries is currently to large compared to the fuel tank filled with diesel. I would gather other production vehicles and farm equipment in general suffer from the same issues or problems.
That said I have seen some interesting prototype and ideas from Volvo and John Deer so it is not like they are not thinking about it, solving the problem might be another issue.
Then there is the whole infrastructure issue, how many charging stations do you have access to out and about? Compared to gas stations? Tesla or someone needs to start to build a fuckton of charging stations out in the boonies cause nobody else is going to do it. Also other issues, there are more power outages out in the country, and it takes longer to fix them. So unless they fix that there is safety in having your own gas tank, sure you could have your own windpowerplant or solarpanels on your barn etc but it's just not the same.
Volvo wants to run high power lines inside the roads. Seems like they want to merge railroads with standard roads.
https://phys.org/news/2013-06-juiced-roads-volvo-explores-electric.html [phys.org]
http://newatlas.com/volvo-electric-road/27913/ [newatlas.com]
John Deer.
http://insideevs.com/john-deere-reveals-electric-farm-tractor-wvideo/ [insideevs.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday September 10 2017, @12:13AM
Long haul trucks carry all their fuel under the tractor.
There is a boat load of bolt on space under the trailer that could be used as well.
Most long haul trucks are no where near their weight limit.
There are safety issues with having that much lithium in one place.
The way I see it is the next commercial improvement in batteries (weight reduction, capacity increase, fire resistance, energy density) makes this a no-brainer for long-hauls. Especially if a drop-empty-pick-up-full technology comes along.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @02:22AM (1 child)
Interestingly, I live in the country, as does most of my family, and we are actually looking forward to electric cars. Gas out here is expensive, AG-fuel audits are a pain, and going to town to get groceries is an hour (or more) round trip of just driving (and the nearest convenience store is 30 round trip and has strange hours (but I could ask my neighbor to open it in an emergency)), which means that you don't drive around that much and plan ahead when you do. Plus, electric vehicles have awesome low-end torque.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday September 10 2017, @11:10AM
In a similar situation. My parents did buy an electric hybrid car last year, the wonder that is the tax reduction on certain items -- without it I doubt they would have bought it. But as you not it's mostly only used for planned events such as going into town and do shopping. For everything else the normal combustion vehicles are used. Any work on the farm or out in the woods more or less require on of the pickups. There might come a day there is a working electric version but I don't see that happening anytime soon.