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Recharge Wrap-up: BMW's electric truck, London's electric double-decker bus

BMW and transport and logistics company Scherm Group have put an electric transport truck into service in Munich, Germany. The 40-ton truck, made by Dutch manufacturer Terberg, will be used to move vehicle components between BMW's Munich plant and Scherm's logistics center cleanly and quietly on public roads. Using the electric vehicle saves 11.8 tons of CO2 per year. It charges in about four hours, and has a range of about 62 miles — enough to make the trip between the two facilities eight times a day. The truck will be powered completely by electricity from renewable sources. With this project, BMW "is showing that you can succeed on the global market with sustainable products made by innovative companies," says Bavaria's Minister for Economic Affairs, Ilse Aigner. Read more in the press release below. Discount supermarket chain Aldi is offering free charging in Germany. The company has installed fast-charging stations at 50 locations for customers to use while they shop. IKEA also has plans to install free charging at its stores in Germany, and other retailers will likely do the same. While offering free e-juice helps businesses garner the attention of its EV-driving customers, it could also help encourage people to buy electric vehicles. Many are disappointed by Germany's lack of EV incentives, despite the country's goal of having 1 million EVs in operation by 2020. Read more at Automotive News Europe. London will put an all-electric double-decker bus into service this year. London Mayor Boris Johnson announced the electric bus trial at the first ever Clean Bus Summit. The bus, made by BYD, will begin service in October. London has already deployed over 1,300 hybrid buses and retrofitted over 1,400 buses to reduce emissions since 2008. Mayor Johnson's goal is to cut buses' NOx emissions in half by the end of his term in 2016 compared to 2008 levels. Also at the Clean Bus Summit, a number of bus makers and banks committed to helping cities roll out fleets of ultra-low emission buses. Read more in the press release from London, and from BYD. The US Department of Energy (DOE) is funding biofuel projects to the tune of $18 million. The DOE will award the funds to six projects in an effort to reduce the price of algae-based biofuels to less than $5 per gasoline gallon equivalent (gge). The DOE has a goal to get the price of algal biofuels to less than $3 per gge by 2030.

BMW adds on-street parking to DriveNow carsharing in SF

BMW is putting a new spin on the concept of the San Francisco treat. The German automaker cut a deal to clear out 80 street-parking spaces for its DriveNow car-sharing program in the notoriously parking-constrained City by the Bay. Bimmer is also more than doubling its all-electric ActiveE car-sharing fleet in San Francisco to 150 vehicles from 70. Starting later this month, customers will be able to access the DriveNow website or app to find, reserve and park the electric Bimmers on certain streets in San Francisco's Mission district. Once the car is ready to be turned back in, the vehicle's in-car screen will also indicate what "drop-off" zones the driver can use to end the reservation. It's all very high-tech, and BMW is looking to expand the program to other San Francisco neighborhoods like Bernal Heights, the Haight, Noe Valley and Potrero Hill. There's also a contest for users to name the 80 new vehicles, but it involves a really complicated lettering system. "New" here means new to DriveNow, since these ActiveE electric vehicles are really those that were, until recently, used by the Electronauts in BMW's EV leasing program. Since those leases are ending, the cars need to go somewhere. We think carsharing is a great home for them. BMW, which also runs DriveNow in the German cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Dusseldorf, said in March that it was looking to add the service to as many as 15 more cities in Europe as well as another 10 in the US. BMW debuted DriveNow in San Francisco in August 2012, though parking the cars has always been an issue. Check out BMW's press release below. BMW Group's DriveNow Car-Sharing Service Expands to Street Parking in San Francisco. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and BMW Group board member Dr. Ian Robertson provided details about DriveNow at a news conference on ... Eighty All-Electric BMW ActiveE Vehicles Added to the DriveNow Fleet to Increase the Convenience of Finding and Parking Emission-Free Cars. San Francisco, CA – May 8, 2014... BMW Group subsidiary DriveNow, a flexible, premium car-sharing program, will expand to offer street parking in multiple neighborhoods in San Francisco, beginning in select areas of the Mission District and will add 80 electric BMW ActiveE vehicles to the existing fleet, increasing the total number of ActiveE vehicles in the San Francisco Bay Area to 150. DriveNow members will have the opportunity to name the 80 electric vehicles in a two-week social media challenge.

BMW X1 testing is underway

It was just a few weeks ago that we got our first glimpse of the next-generation BMW X1, riding around on a flatbed. Now, we have the first batch of images of the small crossover moving under its own steam.
Like the previous round of photos, BMW's psychedelic camouflage is on hand to obscure sheetmetal details, but our intrepid spies still managed to discover a bit about the new X1. It's internal code-name will be F48, and it will sit on the same platform as the next-generation Mini and the BMW 1 Series GT. And for those keeping track at home, those are both front-drive platforms.
The reasoning for the X1's new layout, though, is understandable. Front-wheel drive is more space efficient and affordable, which are kind of big deals to customers. The next X1 won't be limited to its front wheels, though, as BMW's xDrive system is almost a certainty on higher-end trims.