BMW Crushes ActiveE Units En Masse
Recalling the fateful end of GM’s EV1 program, BMW has decided to crush a number of their 1-Series based Active E after the pilot program finished.
The 1,110 Active E units were leased to customers as a means of vetting electric drivetrain technology in advance of the i3 and i8. Due to the nature of the lease program, crushing the cars at the end of their lifespan is standard operating procedure.
Despite the many conspiracy theories and complex explanations for the crushing of EVs, Occam’s Razor can often be applied to these situations: OEMs (in this case, BMW and GM) do not want to be on the hook for replacement parts and servicing obligations, which, by law, can last for over a decade after the end of the vehicle’s production.
Creating a parts and service network for such a small-volume vehicle is prohibitively expensive, and often times, taking back the cars and crushing them is a more economical alternative. Of course, there’s also the potential for the technology to fall into the hands of a competitor, which could be another unfavorable outcome that the OEM wants to avoid, but that’s a smaller concern.
Fortunately, the Active E will live on. Jalopnik reports that a number of units will be put to work as part of a Bay Area car-sharing service. And of course, there’s the all new EVs being introduced by BMW in the near future. Not a bad tradeoff.
More by Derek Kreindler
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I've been ripped here for suggesting that Cadillac should do this with the ELR - it's a program that should be completely unwound.
Clearly the work of a Big Oil conspiracy. Let the documentary filming begin! Who Keeps Killing All Dem Electric Cars!?
Surely this is hardly news. Pre-production vehicles of all types are routinely crushed by all automakers and have been for decades. Of course, this is the new age: let's sit and wonder why, when any decent journalist would just pick up the phone and ask the automakers what their policy is. It's unlikely to be any big secret.
Too bad they didn't leave the battery packs in the cars before crushing - the resulting conflagrations would have powered right-wing blogs for months.