Active role for BMW in Germany’s “national platform for electromobility”

On Monday German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched in Berlin the “national platform for electromobility”. BMW Group will be contributing with its many years of experience in the area of electromobility to the project and the extensive scientific results from field tests currently being carried out with the MINI E.

The Group will also be taking an active role in the “basic conditions” working group that will be chaired jointly by Dr Klaus Draeger, Member of the BMW AG Board of Management responsible for development, and Prof. Lars-Hendrik Röller from the European School of Management and Technology. This group will discuss the measures that will have to be established in order to meet the German government’s objectives of having one-million electric vehicles on the country’s roads by 2020.

Bringing together the worlds of politics, science and industry, this platform has the main objective to keep and strengthen Germany’s pioneering role in the area of electromobility.

According to Norbert Reithofer, Chairman of the BMW AG Board, “Germany is well positioned to become an international leader in the area of electromobility over the long term. To make this happen, our leaders in politics and industry have to be pulling in the same direction.”

Besides the many years of investigations on electromobility BMW has been, since mid-2009, assembling valuable information on the everyday usage of electrically-powered vehicles through its worldwide pilot project involving 600 MINI E cars.

The first results, after more than six months since the start of the project, show that the electric car’s limited range is proving is, in the majority of cases, being sufficient for the daily usage.

E-mobility is considered by BMW Group one of the elements of a future system of mobility, which includes different fuels and drive systems. Probably in 2011, BMW will start another pilot project with a second electric vehicle: the BMW ActiveE. All the results brought by the tests with the vehicle will be used in the development of the Megacity Vehicle that should become in 2013 BMW Group’s first series-produced electric vehicle.