BMW, launching its electric car programme in 2013 under its Project I umbrella, is happy to play a waiting game. “We want to see how the market reacts to the first EVs,” said Jochen Schroeder, manager electric powertrain pre-development, said in London.
“We are going to have a variety of cars from pure EVs to range extenders, plug-in hybrids and hybrids, and our focus will be on megacities where people only travel a short distance,” he said.
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Tests with the Mini E, on trial with customers in the US and Europe, have so far shown that people only travel 20-25km a day and only recharge it once a week so it is easily recharged at home, he said.
Schroeder believes that the range extender concept (like the Chevrolet Volt/Vauxhall Ampera) is a good idea because of the psychology of EVs and ‘range anxiety’.
“With a range-extender you are always on the safe side but there will be a small price premium because you are paying for two engines instead of one.
“I think that 50% of potential EV buyers might opt for a range extender but we’re not expecting sales of all these alternative vehicles to account for more than 5% of total BMW sales in five years.”
Schroeder said that he expects the first buyers of EVs to be “the people who want this technology – the people who have to be first with an iPhone or iPad.”
How the community grows from those early adopters will be interesting, he said, adding that for most buyers, these will be a second car.
But for people living in cities like Singapore and Hong Kong where they never drive out of the city, it could be their only car.
Project I was launched in 2007 as BMW’s think-tank for developing a new generation of mobility solutions.
“We need to be developing this technology ourselves so that we have all the knowledge in-house,” said Schroeder.
“This is a lesson we have learnt from the Japanese car makers who kept the technology for hybrids and EVs in-house so they know what they need.
“So with Project I we have done everything on our own so that we really understand it and are not dependent on suppliers; we really need to know the technology, the possibilities and understand the cost efficiencies,” he said.
Schroeder said volume is only one part of the cost equation – technology is the other.
“We can share volumes on battery cells if we standardise the cell, but not on the batteries because we don’t want a standard battery design.
“It’s the same for power electronics which have several thousand parts most of which are standard industrial products so we can get savings there. Power electronics are probably the most important part of the EV equation.”
