BMW has released the details of its Vision concept car which will be unveiled in Frankfurt in September.
The car is a technological tour-de-force that borrows some of the Volt concept but expands it in new directions.
The car is a 2+2 seater sports car that has stunning performance, aerodynamics, design and fuel efficiency.
It is a plug-in hybrid vehicle not an extended range electric vehilce, but appears to share the best of both architectures.. It uses a 10.8 kwh lithium ion battery pack of which 8.6 kwh hours is usable. Instead of taking GMs approach of only using 50% of a 16 kwh pack, BMW is using 8.6 kwh (80%) of a 10.8 kwh pack, allowing the pack to be smaller and lighter, weighing in at only 187 pounds.
The powerplant is a 3 cylinder 1.5 liter turbo-diesel engine that is supplemented by 2 electric motors. BMW indicates the vehilce is capable of driving on electricity alone, the combustion engine alone or an infinite number of combinations of them. For brief bursts the cumulative output of all three powerplants can be as high as 356 hp and 590 lb-ft of torque.
The car can do 0 to 60 in 4.8 seconds and has an electronically limited top speed of 155 mph.
It gets 62.6 MPG in the European cycle when running only on the diesel engine but is capable of traveling 31 miles purely on electricity when the battery has been fully charged. This configuration will allow the vehilce very high MPG estimates when using the new PHEV measurements under developed.
Charging takes 2-1/2 hours at 240V, 16 amps. A 380 v 32 amp fast charging option is available allowing the car to be recharged in 44 minutes.
There is a 6.6 gallon fuel tank giving the car a 400 (diesel) + 31 (EV) total driving range of 431 miles.
The car also has an astounding coefficient of drag of .22 making it extremely aerodynamic.
It uses lightweight construction techniques and has a cur weight of 3056 pounds.
Styling is aggressive and stunning, there are overhead doors and 3 heads up driver displays