There’s an understated confidence to the BMW i3, the German car-maker’s entrant into the electric vehicles’ market, that you don’t get until you see the car.
It’s not in the throaty growl of an engine, or the satisfying thunk of the car door closing. It’s in the car’s design. At the risk of sounding like a Top Gear reviewer, this is a car that knows what it is, knows what it’s good at and knows it’s limitations. The i3 isn’t a hybrid trying to look like a petrol car. Neither has it succumbed to the outlandish styling that has afflicted so many electric vehicles. Instead the i3 turns quirkiness into something very desirable, arguably for the first time for a mainstream electric car.
The i3 is a city car with rear-wheel drive and four seats. It’s one of the most efficient EVs on the market, with a range of 100 miles. The batteries are located at the bottom of the car to give it stability. It contains more Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) than any other passenger car. This is most apparent in its futuristic interior, which stands out with its mix of wood, textured plastics and screens.
BMW i3 exposes combines carbon fibre panels and natural materials
The car is credited as being the first completely original design from one of the big traditional car makers. At the Low Carbon Vehicles show at Millbrook Proving Grounds, Bedfordshire earlier this month, Glenn Schmidt, head of government affairs for the BMW Group, said: “We realised early on that we could not rely on a conversion, we needed to start from scratch with the design. The CFRP for the passenger cabin compensates for the additional weight of the electric drive train. It's an industry first to use this much carbon fibre. The drivetrain also gives us a lot of flexibility for other designs in the i family.”
Alongside the i3 the company is offering the i8 plug-in hybrid, a “fuel efficient sports car”. The 1.5 litre three cylinder engine is the same one used in the latest Mini, tuned to 231bhp and combined with the electric motor to boost it to 357bhp. In “pure” electric mode the car’s range is just 23 miles, but in hybrid mode it does 134.5mpg. The i8 is the first in a number of electric road supercars from traditional manufacturers. Next year other sports car manufacturers including Aston Martin, McLaren and Porsche plan to start selling their plug-in hybrids for the first time. All three join US manufacturer Tesla, which produces the world’s first mass produced electric car, in this rapidly growing segment of the market.
BMW began global field trials of electric vehicles in 2009, with the electric version of the Mini. Learnings from those trials have fed into the development of the i3 and i8, particularly around charging. “We learned that 85% of all charging takes place at home. Just 10% is done publicly and 5% is done with long distance, DC charging between cities,” says Schmidt.
Equally important, he says, are incentives to boost the consumer adoption of electric vehicles. Support mechanisms such as tax exemption and “softer” incentives, such as access to restricted lanes that avoid traffic are also vital. According to BMW, 59% of electric vehicle owners in California say that access to High Occupancy Vehicle lanes has been the main driver in buying an electric vehicle. Schmidt adds that credible environmental credentials are also key, and BMW claims that over its entire lifecycle the i3 it will emit 50% less CO2 than the equivalent diesel vehicle.
Unusual designs of electric vehicles have traditionally deterred consumers
As a statement of intent, the i3 and i8 have clearly pegged out BMW’s future strategy. The car maker firmly believes that pure battery electric vehicles will play an important role in the future car market. So far, that belief appears to be paying off. Both the i3 and i8 have been warmly received by critics and consumers alike, with a healthy order backlog for both vehicles.
However, despite some stand-out successes, consumers have been slower to adopt electric vehicles than analysts would have hoped. Some 200,000 electric vehicles were sold last year, including plug-in and petrol hybrids, almost double the amount sold in 2012. Nevertheless, the current uptake rate means the industry will fall far short of the International Energy Agency’s target of 20 million by 2020. Most in the automotive industry admit consumer reaction to electric vehicles has been largely lacklustre, with some analysts commenting that the front-runners with the technology are too early for the market.
Renault-Nissan’s chief executive Carlos Ghosn for example, admitted last year that electric vehicles sales were four years behind targets and blames a lack of support for the sector's slow development. But Renault is still heavily backing EV’s. Last month the carmaker announced a partnership with the French firm that operates Paris’ Autolib electric car-sharing scheme that will see the car maker start to produce the “Bluecar” electric vehicles the scheme uses.
Governments around the world are responding to slow electric vehicle sales with more measures to encourage purchases. Many cite Norway, where cumulative sales figures for the new car market have increased 13% this year, as the model to follow. Electric cars are exempt from both VAT and sales tax in Norway, meaning battery electric cars can cost as much as 50% less than a petrol car. Germany, which has the ambitious target of a million electric cars on its roads by 2020, unveiled new legislation last month to give its electric vehicle sector a boost. The plans include several softer incentives, such as allowing electric cars into bus lanes, free parking and reserved parking spaces in locations with charging points.
However, some point out that the lack of electric vehicle uptake can be just as easily blamed on car manufacturers' lack of innovation in the sector. The big OEMs have far from abandoned the internal combustion engine, with engineers doggedly squeezing every last drop of efficiency out of petrol and diesel designs. This approach is exemplified by Volkswagen’s XL1 car, the “One Litre Car”, which does a remarkable 313mpg. The company calls it a “lighthouse project”, because it acts as a platform to develop technologies that will eventually be found throughout their range of cars. “It shines its experience and technology onto other projects and enables us to produce the main components of the car ourselves,” says Dr Volker Kaese, leader of the technical project steering team XL1 serial production for Volkswagen.
Iterative development of the XL1 started in 2002 and many of its components and design aspects have been repeatedly honed. “We reduced the air resistance by reducing the weight and improving the aerodynamics. We had to optimise the energy use with a highly efficient downsized engine and a plug-in hybrid system. The main point is that you gain the energy back into the energy into the battery by recuperation," Kaese says.
VW engineers are pursuing efficiency with the XL1 car
The car uses a plug-in hybrid TDI Drive,which combined with the weight reductions and aerodynamic improvements means the car uses 60% less carbon than a conventional Golf, Kaese says. “The starting point for weight reduction is a light chassis, because the body takes up 43% of the car's entire weight. We decided to make the whole car from CRFP like a Formula 1 car. It's made in a single 5 x 5m die with a total weight of 89.5kg. All of the exterior is formed from CRFP, but you can't bend it.”
The car features polycarbonate windows with a coating modified from the defence sector to stop scratching. This saves nearly 10kg in each car. “The technology has to be fully scaled up before it can be used in other vehicles,” says Kaese.
The reduction in weight on the axle means that power steering is not required, reducing the weight by another 10kg. The car has ceramic brake discs and carbon fibre stabilisers on the front and rear axles. Plus, the car uses a camera system instead of wing mirrors. Kaese says: “We've made real the engineer's dream. We are the first to bring an electric mirror system instead of exterior side mirrors.”
The net result is a car that is 500kg lighter than a regular VW Golf - 1306Kg down to 795kg and surprisingly, available to buy today.
The innovative weight reductions in the XL1 are dramatic and a great example of what’s possible, but the idea of a hybrid drive is not new. Toyota produced its first hybrid car 17 years ago and last December had sold 6 million of them around the world. By the end of this year the Japanese car firm expects to have sold almost 7 million. Of the 200,000 electric vehicles sold to date in the UK, 93% of them were hybrids.
Toyota's first hybrid car was launched in December 1997
Katsuhiko Hirose, general manager of Toyota's Fuel Cell Engineering Division and Energy Research Department is the engineer credited as being the driving force behind the development of Toyota’s hybrid drive. He says: “Will our grandchildren be able to enjoy the same level of mobility as this generation? If they use the same amount of fuel as we do, they will not be able to. Our generation has to do something much quicker. That's my passion.
“Hybrids have paved the way for electric mobility and showed the potential of electric motors. Now we are entering a phase that will use the non-combustion engine for mobility. Our ideas are revolutionary in the beginning, but eventually they become very normal and used everyday.”
Hirose and Toyota’s view of the future sees hybrids as a stepping stone. The long term future strategy is a mix of battery electric vehicles for shorter range journeys and hydrogen fuel cell cars for longer range. Fuel cells are cheaper, have better performance and are more convenient in long range journeys than other fuels, they say. Behind the cars is an electricity and hydrogen grid using energy from a diverse number of sources.
“Some people say that hydrogen infrastructure will never come. But we see that hydrogen is becoming more and more a fuel for the whole of society to use. It’s not just a fuel for cars, it will provide energy storage for surplus renewable energy for instance,” he says.
Toyota’s engineers are focussed on cutting the cost of the hydrogen fuel cell car, which Hirose admits, “is still not a cheap cap”. Japan will have built 100 hydrogen stations by 2015 and plans to build 5000 by 2020. Korea is also investing heavily in hydrogen infrastructure, while other leading areas include California, the UK and Germany. Hirose says that in Germany hydrogen production already exceeds consumption.
Toyota’s world view is one which most analysts subscribe to. Ben Scott, from automotive consultancy IHS, agrees that plug-in hybrids will grow the strongest within the electric vehicle segment in the short term and that in Japan and Korea there will be a “battle” from fuel cells. “By 2020 we are getting to the 900,000 unit mark for pure electric, plug-in hybrid and hybrid electric vehicles. China is the major player. It’s really pushing EV rentals to introduce them to the population. They also have special rates for EV charging, there are local government incentives for their use and there is a 10% tax exemption for pure EVs.”
The majority share of electric vehicles produced by 2016 will be plug-in hybrids, but this will switch to pure electric vehicles by 2020, he predicts. Europe will be producing the most pure electric vehicles and will have manufactured more than 300,000 units by 2020. IHS predicts that China will not be far behind, but the US will be playing catch-up.
Meanwhile, although the electric vehicle market races ahead in China, the consultancy forecasts that uptake will be slower elsewhere in emerging economies. IHS predicts just 20,000 being made in India, 8,000 in Brazil and just 2,000 in Russia by 2020. “2014 is a key year with a number of EV's being introduced that legitmise the market,” Scott adds.
US firm Tesla is credited with being the first to bring electric vehicles to the mainstream
By 2020 IHS Automotive predicts that global sales of electric vehicles will be almost one million units. Globally the volumes are getting larger, but compared to the production of internal combustion engine vehicles, they remain small. By 2020 electric vehicles account for less than 2% of the entire market. Electric vehicles are coming to the mainstream, but it would seem slower and without the confidence than many would want.