BMW Group looks into a Megacity future

The Megacity Vehicle launch is set for 2013. This will be first series-production electric-drive BMW model in the market, developed under Project i and released under a new sub-brand of BMW. It is specifically made as a city car that will produce zero carbon emissions.

The first round of MINI E field testing in the UK brings a lot of useful data for the development of the Megacity Vehicle and BMW’s future sub-brand for premium electric cars. Ian Gray, Chief Executive of The Technology Strategy Board shares some insight on BMW’s future electric car strategy. BMW Group is holding on to their basic tenets: mobility, sustainability and efficiency.

Gray said, “The Megacity Vehicle (MCV) combines all of BMW Group’s expertise in lightweight engineering, electric drive technology and dynamic driving characteristics in one unique, ground-breaking vehicle.”

The architecture of the car is completely designed from scratch by BMW engineers. Because of their efforts, they have come up with the LifeDrive concept which includes two horizontally separated and independent modules: the Drive and Life. The Drive module integrates the chassis, battery, drive system and structural and crash functions into one unit. The Life module on the other hand uses strong and lightweight Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastics (CFRP) to form the passenger cell. This reduces the weight of the car by 250 to 350kg to make way for the batteries. The LifeDrive system makes the production process flexible and also saves a lot on energy.

The Megacity Vehicle concept car might be unveiled at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show. The first production model will follow in 2012.