BMW Partnering With Kymco For I3 Range Extender

by Derek Kreindler

March 19th, 2013 1:58 PM

bmw partnering with kymco for i3 range extender

The gasoline range-extender that will be optional in BMW’s i3 electric car will be built by Kymco, a Taiwanese firm that is best known for its scooters.

BMW and Kymco have worked together in the past, with Kymco building engines for the BMW G450X dirt bike. The two-cylinder motor was designed in Germany but built by Kymco’s Taiwan factory – and the i3 will likely have a similar arrangement, given the familiarity between the firms. The parallel-twin will apparently be given extensively changes for the i3, especially given that the requirements for a motorcycle engine and a range extender being run at a constant load are very different.

#BMW #BmwI3 #ElectricVehicle #EV #Kymco #Range-extender #Taiwan

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Conslaw on Mar 19, 2013

Volvo had a Turbine/electric concept car in the 1990s called the ECC. Introduced with great fanfare in the buff books, it vanished with nary a whimper. It would be nice to find out what Volvo learned from its experience.

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SCE to AUX on Mar 19, 2013

This is a good idea, since it will be a more optimal package than a standard ICE transplant (like the Volt).

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El scotto on Mar 19, 2013

Oh I can see it in the near future. Some preening hipster exclaiming in the Whole Foods parking lot: "It's a BMW and Electric; it's just so green and eco-friendly!!! Nevermind the range extender was built in Taiwan and shipped to Germany and then the whole car was shipped from Germany to the US. Yeah, that's green.

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- SCE to AUX on Mar 19, 2013
  
  "Nevermind the range extender was built in Taiwan and shipped to Germany and then the whole car was shipped from Germany to the US." Considering the fuel a car uses over its lifetime, the transit fuel to build it is nothing.
  
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- El scotto on Mar 19, 2013
  
  @SCE to AUX Not hating on the Leaf :)I'd still like to see environmental studies on the electricity produced to power electric cars and the environmental costs of their production. Too many follow the meme of "Hybrids are good!"; the learned that after "SUVs are bad" wasn't cool anymore.
  
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- SCE to AUX on Mar 19, 2013
  
  @el scotto Those studies have been done. There are several considerations: 1. Cost of your local electricity. 2. Type of fuel that generates your local electricity. 3. Life cycle 'green-ness' of the car. I'm not actually a green weenie, but I don't mind polluting less and saving on fuel costs. And being a geek engineer with an ideal lifestyle for an EV, I'm willing to tolerate its limitations. I pretty sure my local electricity - while very cheap ($0.054/kWh) is produced by coal. A study I read (can't find it now...) indicated that given the Leaf's consumption, its MPGe made it 'greener' by about 17% than the dirtiest coal available. Oil, natural gas, and nuclear generation would be even better. In the case of the Leaf, I think Nissan designed most/all of it to be easily recycled so as to reduce its life cycle environmental costs. So if your electricity is expensive, the savings take longer. If your electricity is the dirtiest coal available, you may still be ahead.
  
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- Niky on Mar 20, 2013
  
  As gslippy has said... the cost of transport of subcomponents pales in comparison to the lifetime costs associated with running the vehicle. And huge economies of scale in terms of shipping means that the costs of shipping, both in terms of fuel used and emissions... emitted... is actually very, very small per unit...
  
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- Shaker on Mar 20, 2013
  
  @SCE to AUX EPA has a web page that shows the "energy mix" of electric utilities by Zip Code: http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/how-clean.html
  
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Shaker on Mar 20, 2013

If one would listen to the "laundry list" of how environmentally "unfriendly" EV's are, one would think twice about buying one. Which is exactly what Big Oil wants. There are people (admittedly, well-off) who own EV's and have solar/wind power at home who can literally drive for free (once the initial investment is out of the way). Yes, they're a very small minority, but it just proves that IF WE REALLY WANTED TO, we could do most of our personal driving with NO OIL. It's feasible.

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- Dr. Kenneth Noisewater on Mar 20, 2013
  
  It'd certainly be more feasible with thorium molten-salt reactors supplying safe, cheap and clean nuclear power and high-quality heat by burning up the decades of radioactive waste currently sitting in cooling tanks waiting to leak along with the thorium that currently has a negative economic value.
  
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