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The fact that both combustion engines and electric motors find themselves inside the same 18,000-person complex in Dingolfing, BMW’s largest in Europe, makes it a microcosm of a shift overtaking automakers the world over. A visitor can see that 625-horsepower engine—more than twice as powerful as the original from 1985, a luxury product relentlessly branded as “the ultimate driving machine”—then walk around the corner and see its puny electric replacement. You start thinking the better slogan might be “the ultimate combustion engine.” As in: last of its kind.
Deep within Dingolfing you can find the human representations of the end of a 100-year technological era. These workers have electric flashes stitched onto their blue factory smocks, and their jobs are focused on the BMW i3—the company’s only all-electric model—as well as a lineup of plug-in hybrids. There were just a few employees marked with electric patches in a remote corner of the factory back when BMW first started gearing up for electric vehicles. Today, electric works occupy about 10 percent of Dingolfing.
In just a few years BMW will sell a dozen battery-powered models. The transition is already proving painful and expensive. Last month, expecting a 10 percent slump in profit this year, the company said it would begin a 12 billion-euro efficiency campaign to pay for this battery-focused revamp. Starting in 2021, meanwhile, BMW plans to eliminate up to 50 percent of drivetrain options. About a third of its 133,000-strong workforce has been trained to handle production of electric vehicles—and it’s clear that all of today’s employees won’t be necessary for tomorrow’s tasks.
Soon BMW's engines will roar no more?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday April 12 2019, @10:38AM (10 children)
I was just discussing this with my wife this morning. Even she - a non-engineering type - sees the problem: where, exactly, is all of the electricity supposed to come from?
Germany is turning itself into a net importer of electricity, by closing down their nuclear power plants. Meaning that a goodly portion of the electricity for these cars will come from imported electricity, generated largely by fossil fuels - including some lovely coal-powered plants in Eastern Europe. Somehow the politicians never talk about problems like that, and neither to the eco-activists.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pkrasimirov on Friday April 12 2019, @10:49AM (3 children)
Here's the plan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#Targets [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @11:12AM
So it is back to the takeover method then, we will soon realize that current solar output already has a role in our ecosystem. It may not be "free" energy for us to do as we wish.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @12:47PM (1 child)
From that:
> As of 2017, renewable sources account for 38% of the net electricity production.
Also Bradley: did you and your wife do back of the envelope math for household energy consumption? Don't you think - if you did - that in Germany, heating living spaces might be a more serious concern than powering transportation?
Especially given Germany has an extremely well developed rail system, so for freight there's a dramatically lower cost per pound compared to human loads. Citation again wikipedia sorry:
> In the case of freight, CSX ran an advertisement campaign in 2013 claiming that their freight trains move "a ton of freight 436 miles on a gallon of fuel", whereas some sources claim trucks move a ton of freight about 130 miles per gallon of fuel, indicating trains are more efficient overall.
this time from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_resistance#Comparing_rolling_resistance_of_highway_vehicles_and_trains [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 13 2019, @03:51AM
Why should they think that? Why should that be relevant? Keep in mind that Germany can heat living spaces with Russian natural gas. They don't need electricity from Polish coal. But one doesn't have the same relative dodge with electric cars.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Friday April 12 2019, @11:24AM
France [wikipedia.org] - one of the biggest exporter of energy, gets 70%+ from nuclear power
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday April 12 2019, @01:25PM
Russian natural gas. Next question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_gas_pipelines#From_Russia [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday April 12 2019, @03:48PM (1 child)
Germany's trick is: start early.
Their "Energiewende" [wikipedia.org] study and planning phase took off in 1980.
It's a fascinating Wiki article, actually.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 13 2019, @04:14AM
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday April 12 2019, @09:42PM (1 child)
In Germany i noticed that nearly half of all the houses had some solar panels on them already. That was a few years ago. They are pretty serious on an individual level.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Touché) by deimtee on Saturday April 13 2019, @12:47AM
They're Germans. They are pretty serious on a individual level, on a state level, on a national level, on a planetary level, and if they ever get there, probably on an interstellar level.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.