It’s difficult to relate an automobile brand like BMW with electric cars but the company has turned a new leaf in history with its new initiative. BMW has unveiled its new class of vehicles powered by batteries and I bent to bring out quite a number of cars by 2013.
The launch of the corporate green initiative ‘project I’ by the German carmaker in the year 2007 was seen more as a way to generate sustainability credentials without any actual substantial work. The project was aimed at corporate green ‘project I’ for the urban populations of the world which together constitute nearly half of the world’s total population.
The wonder car by BWM is named as “Megacity” and is poised as the best concept cars of the times. The transition between traditional carmakers to switch from gasoline to electricity was earlier seen totally impossible but the managements at BMW beg to differ. The company in an press conference at a plant outside Munich gave their best to convince everyone that the electric cars were actually possible.
Not many details are available about the car since there are still two good years till the car can make its appearance on the roads. The zero emission cars by the automobile giant have got everyone pretty excited, the upcoming Megacity will be the first in the series of electric-drive models. The car is touted by the company to be as strong as steel and still weight much less than aluminum about its half in weight. The car will be made of ultra-light, high-strength composite carbon fiber reinforced plastics or the (CFRP). The company has given an altogether new dimension to the carbon fiber use. At a time all major companies have their electric cars built on the existing car models; BMW has gone a step further by developing the “LifeDrive” architecture as it s called by the company. This special structure was necessary for the car as the lithium-ion batteries used in the cars is more suitable with the light weight structure. And besides all this the structure will also open avenues for many more body-styles.
The zero-emission car will be able to seat four people. The car is expected to have a rear-wheel drive and a 150 hp (112 kW / 152 PS) electric motor that will be powered by a 35 kWh battery. According to BMW, the Megacity will thus offer a range of at least 100 miles (161 km) and a top speed of 95 mph (153 km/h).