2011 Bmw 535 I on 2040-cars

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BMW to launch loaner program to avoid range anxiety on i models

BMW is looking to stave off electric vehicle range anxiety with a new program that offers buyers a free gasoline loaner with every i3 purchase. Ward's Auto reports BMW is confident that the EV will give buyers the kind of transportation they need for 90 percent of their trips. The loaners, meanwhile, will be available for those few occasions when drivers need to cover more ground than the machine's batteries will allow. The i3 gets around with help from a 180-horsepower electric motor paired with a lithium-ion battery pack.
The combo is good for trips of between 80 and 100 miles depending on driving habits and weather conditions, though BMW also plans to offer a model with a small two-cylinder range-extending gasoline engine as well. That option will likely set you back an additional $4,000. When the machine bows in 2014, it will likely come with a charge time of four to six hours when suckling from a 220-volt outlet.
As far as the conventionally powered loaner car goes, the cost of the program is included in the i3's purchase price, though BMW has yet to figure out how many free loans will be offered, or what happens after that threshold is reached.

2014 BMW 4 Series Convertible [w/video]

Here it is, the fifth generation of BMW's 3 Series Convertible - only this one begins with a "4," having been rechristened as a droptop version of the new 4 Series Coupe. With thirty years of work on this same recipe and having gotten it so right for much of that time, the Munich compact premium convertible has been a WYSIWYG affair for decades: once you saw its sedan paradigm, you knew what it was going to look like in roofless two-door form, and what you saw is exactly what you got.
It is ridiculous to think that BMW would choose this new model and its new nomenclature to muck things up. The new car has, though, gotten larger and roomier, and even though it's now part of the racier coupe division within the company's compact line, it has gotten more, shall we say, mature. Driving even further away from the days when handsomely tipped bartenders could work their way into one, The Ultimate Tanning Machine had shed even more elan, going instead for elegance and an attitude befitting its $49,675 starting price (including $925 for destination).
It strikes a few odd notes, but what it does best, it still does better than anything else out there in its price range.

BMW matriarch Johanna Quandt dies at 89

Johanna Quandt, matriarch of the family that owns the largest stake in BMW, has died at age 89. One of the world's richest women, Quandt ranked in her own right as the eighth wealthiest individual in Germany, and one of the 100 wealthiest billionaires in the world. Johanna Maria Bruhn was born in June 1926, the daughter of art historians in Berlin. She trained in medical technology before the outbreak of World War II, and after the war worked as a banker's secretary in Cologne. She started working for Herbert Quandt in Bad Homburg, near Frankfurt, in the mid-1950s, and eventually became his personal assistant. They married in 1960, shortly after increasing the family's stake in BMW to 50 percent in order to stave off a takeover attempt by Daimler-Benz. The Quandt family's fortune was controversially amassed during the war. Herbert's father, Gunther Quandt, was a top Nazi-era industrialist named by Adolf Hitler as a Wehrwirtschaftsfuhrer – Leader of the Armament Economy. After Herbert's mother Antonie died, Gunther remarried to Magda, a much younger woman. Following their subsequent divorce, Magda married Nazi master propagandist Joseph Goebbels (with Hitler as best man), and together raised Herbert's half-brother Harald. A recent documentary found that the AFA, the company that the Quandts controlled during WWII, used slave labor provided by the Nazi regime to manufacture battery and munitions for the German war effort. Due to the subhuman living and working conditions, AFA lost approximately 80 forced laborers each month. Despite earlier denial of any wartime wrongdoing, the documentary and ensuing public attention prompted the Quandts to open their books to another investigation that confirmed their wartime activities. The Quandts would later use the capital they amassed to buy BMW, of which they still hold 46.7 percent – the remaining 53.3 percent traded publicly. Following Herbert's death in 1982, Johanna took over 16.7 percent ownership in the company, with their son Stefan Quandt acquiring 17.4 percent and their daughter Susanne Klatten assuming 12.6 percent ownership. Stefan and Susanne, both members of BMW's supervisory board since 1997, are expected to inherit their mother's shares following her passing. Johanna's personal fortune was estimated at nearly $14 billion. Though reclusive from media and public attention, she gave generously to charitable foundations that supported such causes as medical research and business journalism.