BMW Megacity Vehicle and Project i: Interview with Ulrich Kranz

BimmerToday had an opportunity to interview Ulrich Kranz, the project leader of Project i program — which deals with the future mobility research and the development of the BMW Megacity Vehicle — at the Munich the Innovation Days around mobility of the future.

The Megacity vehicle is a very promising vehicle. It is fully electric powered and can carry up to four people. Its capacity is just enough for a city car.  Aside from an emission-free electric motor, it is also made of lightweight material. Here are a few parts of the interview:

BimmerToday: Mr. Kranz, you told us earlier that Project i is on its way to provide sustainable mobility. In what exactly do you see this pioneering work?
Ulrich Kranz: What we consider pioneering work is the fact that we are entering new technologies, new vehicle architectures, but also entering in new production concepts and new distribution concepts. We do this by first looking at what is there today, while asking critical questions, such as which processes we can improve for greater sustainability. For these issues, we have sought out specialists who can really think ‘outside of the box’ in the Think Tank Project i, but of course, without losing sight of practicality.

BimmerToday: Particularly the issue of recycling batteries is likely to cause problems. What solutions do you have ready at hand?
Ulrich Kranz: One of the points is that the energy producers, thanks to some conscience political pressure, have increased investment in renewable energy. Wind and solar energy have always had a problem of storing energy when it is not retrieved in the moment. Here for example, one could use the used batteries from the – hopefully many – electric vehicles, in order to use them as stationary memory in a wind power plant. It becomes even clearer that the battery is not defective at the end of its life cycle, but can only store less energy. A battery is still useful in such applications as a stationary battery. In the event that it really comes down to recycling, with our partner SB LiMotive, we have already planned the construction of a cell that makes it possible to separate the expensive materials and reuse them – this will happen only at the absolute end of life when the battery can no longer be reused.

BimmerToday: What factors are the ones who make the step to electric vehicles so inevitable? After electric mobility was viewed as less interesting a few years back, it seems that in the meantime has become a fundamental change of heart.
Ulrich Kranz: Of course, several factors play a role, but one key point are the batteries. We have been working since 1970 on this and with electric motors and have tried all sorts of possibilities with battery technologies, but all they had at least one serious problem: either the breadth or the cycle stability was inappropriate. As with the first cell phones or laptops, the battery always had to be completely discharged, in order to avoid memory effects, which is more difficult in the automotive sector. It was thanks to the lithium-ion technology, which only came into series production a few years ago, where the first breakthroughs were made. You can charge the battery whenever you’re near a charger, the battery has no memory effect and works in a very wide temperature range. Another factor is that it possible to have such a vehicle, in extreme cases, left unused for months, without the battery discharging itself. These things have led to an introduction to electric vehicles that now make sense. Then there is the whole topic of changing values, the environment, CO ², Global Warming, which has now resulted in all parts of the world on political decisions in this direction.

BimmerToday: We know that the Megacity vehicle will have a rear engine and rear wheel drive. After just returning back from a test drive with the MINI E, it seems likely that the lack of traction could have played a role in the decision of front-wheel drive combination with the massive torque of the electric motor from idle speed. Was there any negative customer feedback here about too much influence in the steering?
Ulrich Kranz: If you have a drive that offers a lot of torque at low speed, traction is of course always an issue. On a vehicle with rear engine and rear wheel drive, of course, you benefit from the dynamic axle load distribution and have significantly more power to the pavement. But this is only one of the points, because even in the interior, we wanted to create a different sense of space, which is supported by the rear placed engine. There are also issues such as crash safety, as these can be rear-engined design differently.

BimmerToday: Can you say something about the price?
Ulrich Kranz: No. The price depends on how much we can go into the bulk. The entire technology is not cheap, but as with any new technology is a question of quantity. The more other producers enter this market, the more likely for the volume to grow rapidly. One can compare this with the first computers, or the first cell phones, because they were initially very expensive and became cheaper as volume increased.

BimmerToday: What do you consider to be the decisive feature for the Megacity Vehicle that BMW would be able to inspire their customers – possibly also in contrast to comparable models from competitors?
Ulrich Kranz: We can not comment on the competition at the moment, because there are not enough vehicles in this segment, but we have already confirmed that we will run it as a sub-brand of BMW, therefore, it must offer the agility and driving dynamics of a BMW. The architecture is new and emphasizes both the appearance and in the interior of the electric driving. We believe that we can reach a proper course, and offer a high quality premium product. This is of course the claim of BMW. With the sub-brand, we can also do more daring things and here, you can look forward to some surprises.

Source: BimmerToday