BMW unveils futuristic Vision

Light?

"The vehicle’s light 3069lbs (1395kg) weight is largely due to use of an all-aluminium chassis and polycarbonate body panels"

Amazing how anyone can think this is light.

The original 1959 mini weighed around 600kg

The early Ford Escorts were around 750kg

Even the 240mph Mclaren F1 from 1992 was only 1100kg

Any car that weighs much more than a tonne cannot be described as light!

Vapour Ware...

Still waiting to see if Honda actually make the CRZ.

Theres No Point in 1/2 people driving about in an efficient 5/7 seater (Toyota/Lexus)

Crap fuel economy

I'm from the younger generation of folk who work in the overall misnomer "IT field."

Couple of years ago I had a diesel yaris, 1.4L, surprisingly good and economical, I was surprised by what modern smaller cars can put out there in terms of power. Yes, it's a city car, fair enough.

But this thing may look amazing, but it will cost a lot more to produce, even in a mass market, than BMW will ever let on, and the MPG is hardly breath-taking. It does 5MPG more (to the euro standard, remember) than a good small diesel car, and of a car in the same class...maybe what, 15 MPG more?

It's a step in the right direction, but why can't we ditch this nuclear power plug in car nonsense, and simply intensify efforts into efficient hydrogen collection for usage in developing vehicles?

If you do a deep internet search, you can find that the percentage of money going on electric cars compared to hydrogen cars by the large automobile manufacturers leans heavily in the electric car's favour. I only suspect that the concentration of manufacturers on electric cars is do to do with how the big oil companies are starting to position themselves, as they edge towards electricity creation, and not supplying diesel or petrol anymore to vehicle consumers.

Blimmin' 'eck

That is awesome.

Four seats, too!

Holy God

That is gorgeous.

And?

a) BMW will never build a car that looks like that. Merely the technology will be subsumed into the BMW 1-10.

b) BMW are pulling out of F1

c) I'm still not letting BMW drivers out of junctions.

Finally, A Beemer I would drive

I normally loathe Beemers (and the ar$eh0le$ who drive them), but the 8 year old in me loves the look of this one!!!

Please make it BMW, please, oh please, oh please!

Boo!

There's nothing worse than concept cars:

"Ooh look, here's one of those cars from the Bladerunner/Dredd/Minority Report/I, Robot movies. It's fast, efficient, and looks like the future has finally, finally, arrived.

Oh, you can't buy it - didn't I mention that bit?!"

Aaarrgh.

Low drag and light?

Since when has 1400kg been light? That is twice the weight of a spitfire / midget / original mini / sprite etc.

Do what they have done and acheive a weight substancially less than 1 ton and I'll be impressed.

Plus - if they have taken everything they learnt from F1 and used it for aerodynamics it won't be very slippy. Considering in the last couple of races they were telling the drivers to use the drag of the car to help conserve the brakes, I don't think this is a good start for designing a car :) Whilst I think that they were taking things a little far for entertainment purposes Stirling Moss commented that the stopping power of lifting your foot off of the throttle and letting the drag take over gives better stopping performance than his brakes gave him when he was racing.

High downforce (F1) = High Drag Co-efficient

On the bright side, it doesn't look bad, and if it really goes as well as it's supposed to then it's the first hybrid that I would not mind driving :)

Indicators?

no sign of them true BMW revolution there! im guessing they are an optional extra

insert here

sensationally good looking car,

stunning paintjob

But...

How long do the batteries take to recharge?

This is still the over-riding issue with electric cars. (though the diesel engine mitigates that significantly)

Also; would a production version be as hideously unattractive as that prototype?

Mailed to Top Gear...

So Mr. Clarkson, Captain Slow, and The Hampster can take one of these for a spin and let us know what may or may not suck about it.

Or at least so we get a chance to see one in action! ;-)

Diesel-electric

Diesel-electric has got to be the way to go for these hybrid powertrains, I'm surprised it's taking so long to reach the market. I also really like the idea of generating extra power while cruising to be used for a boost when accelerating. What would you call that - power-shifting?

I think the real shame is that all these hot "futuristic" powerplants come is such awful futuristic designs.

@Elnumbre, other BMW haters

"still not letting BMW drivers out of junctions." , "I normally loathe Beemers (and the ar$eh0le$ who drive them)"

Pot? Kettle? Black? There's plenty of twunts in all makes of car. There's no need to start cutting up random people based on what car they're in, all because another car of the same make cut you up once....

As for the car, it's high time they made a performance model using hybrid tech. At least they're developing cars that will appeal to people other than the smug "ooh, look at me; I'm saving teh planet" set, and the economies of scale thus produced will mean that a normal family car with hybrid tech, with good performance at a normal price edges ever closer.

Yeah, great, errr.....

The key question to ask of any leccy tech is what's the 'carbon footprint' for for mining, building and engineering the batteries and how often are you going to need to replace the damn things? Didn't a recent study suggest a Prius is worse for the environment to build than an ordinary petrol/diesel car?

Leccy cars won't reduce our dependency on fossil fuels anyway, they'll just chagne the way in which we're dependent on them.

If BMW are using F-1 tech where's the KERS? I'd have thought that'd be one of the best systems by which to charge the batteries on the move.

@ AC 11:40 - Spot on, let's take the spotlight of these quasi-green electric motors and concentrate on soemthing far better.

@Crap fuel economy

You have got to be kidding.

You're calling 75mpg / 99g CO2 from a 350bhp / 155mph sportscar "crap"??

If these figures are true then they are awesome. NOTHING comes close at the moment.

The only cars currently achieving 99g CO2 are the Smart ForTwo, Ford Fiesta, VW Polo, Seat Ibiza and the Prius. That's it.

A BMW M5 (admittedly a touch faster/better/more practical, but not a mile off) struggles to get 20mpg...

In case you didn't notice: a Yaris has slightly less performance than this thing.

I really don't get the enthusiasm for hydrogen cars. Where do you think the hydrogen comes from?

That is one hideous car

that is all...

Can I just get my water powered car please

I heard about it in 1980 and have seen it on youtube :)

Can you please stop messing about with batteries and hydrogen fuel stations and give me the one that runs off water.

Oh maybe this is why http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDHT0hBgVOw

Saucy !

looks like one of these shiny multi coloured marbles I use to dream about as a kid !

and for "I'm still not letting BMW drivers out of junctions." ...

I make a point of letting all brands of cars through at junctions, hopefully you can one day be convinced that one can't judge people by the brand of car they drive (or their color ? or what they wear ? ... go read books, educate yourself and become intelligent some day)

I do get worried about the electric trend though ... what the hell are we going to do with all these batteries ??

ah, the hydrotards are back

hydrogen is never going to be a realistic option. The power-station-to-wheel efficiency of hydrogen is around 25% - optimistically! discounting tank leakage etc. - compared to 86% for an electric vehicle. ie, a hydrogen car requires three and a half times the energy.

That extra electricity has to come from somewhere. With electric vehicles the efficiencies are such that you can generate the electricity conventionally and still save carbon. But with hydrogen the sums don't add up. Hydrogen's even less beneficial when "renewable" energy is added into the mix, as the amount we can plausibly generate is limited by land (and coastal) area, so every kWh over that is disproportionally more CO2.

(FWIW I heartily recommend everyone reads "Sustainable energy without the hot air", read it online or download the PDF for free at http://www.withouthotair.com/ . It's written by a physics professor, so it's all hard numbers - power consumption, efficiencies, how much solar power you can get from a given area, etc.)

Ugly bugger

Looks like it was designed by a blind crack addict at Nike.

Want.

Now.

I do get fed up with concept cars, but this hybrid looks as though it'll make its way into the 1-series before all that long. Although I wouldn't mind driving this thing as-is.,

Lessee ... checks bank balance ... hmmm ...