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BMW Innovation Day 2006: EfficientDynamics


April 2006
 Filed under: BMW Car News | BMW Headlines
April 27, 2006

The dedicated motorist choosing a BMW should always be certain that he or she is purchasing a car able to offer maximum driving pleasure on the highest possible level of all-round economy. And under the term "EfficientDynamics", BMW sums up all development activities serving to achieve this supreme standard.
At the Innovation Day 2006, BMW is presenting the latest developments in drivetrain technology, energy management, and materials technology which help to convincingly fulfil current and future-oriented customer wishes for even more efficient energy concepts and to master the challenges of tomorrow. Customer demand for vehicles offering higher output and performance together with increasingly diverse comfort and safety functions, and all this on less fuel, requires the utmost of the specialist in automotive develop¬ment.

Innovation overcoming conflicts of interest.
Striving for EfficientDynamics, BMW is pursuing a strategy fit for the future and setting the trend in every respect. This strategy leads to vehicles reflecting the core value of the BMW brand - Sheer Driving Pleasure - in the same way as they meet the demands of the modern, future-oriented customer. The EfficientDynamics concept therefore consistently relates all factors of performance, fuel consumption, and weight to one another, providing target-oriented innovations on the drivetrain, in lightweight technology and aerodynamics, and providing the further option to overcome conflicts of interest.

Some of the latest achievements of this kind are presented at the BMW Innovation Day 2006. The combustion engines featured in BMW's current models, for example, are not only exceptionally powerful, but also, through their high degree of all-round efficiency, make a significant contribution in reaching the objectives described. Intelligent use of materials and modern production technology, in turn, serve to limit the weight of vehicles despite their growing range of features and equipment.

Moving consistently from research to production.
The philosophy of EfficientDynamics covers all areas of automobile development within the BMW Group. And since this includes the development of fundamentally new solutions, researchers in materials technology search consistently for new materials helping to optimise the weight of the car and enhance driving pleasure accordingly.

BMW Group specialists working in this area have a level of competence and know-how truly outstanding not only within the automotive industry. Indeed, in the demands they make of new materials, BMW's development specialists set significant standards in the area of materials research. And at the same time they are in a position to upgrade the latest findings in scientific research quickly and efficiently to the standard of perfection required for pracitical use. As a result, the customer receives a vehicle which, in the sum total of its qualities, always represents the latest state of the art - which means also making specific parts and components out of materials which did not even exist before in this form and thus give a BMW truly unique qualities.

The front side panel on the BMW 3 Series Coupé, for example, is made of a synthetic material never used before and therefore exclusive to BMW. Also in terms of design freedom and temperature resistance, this extremely light component offers qualities no synthetic material was ever able to provide before.

The leadership in technology of the BMW Group thus provides customer benefits only BMW is able to offer: the front side panel in the BMW 3 Series Coupé is not only lighter than a conventional side panel made of steel, but also sustains less damage in a minor impact.

The BMW Group is likewise fully consistent in engine development, proceeding from the theoretical concept to the actual driving experience. But the approach taken in this case need not necessarily be the fastest one, since it is also part of BMW's philosophy to weigh the assets of the brand against the benefits actually offered to the customer in introducing a new technical solution.

With every new BMW offering an enhanced level of driving dynamics, the driver must feel this improvement directly. And the same applies to the improvement of fuel economy - which is precisely why BMW deliberately decided against introducing the first generation of direct gasoline injection, since the fuel savings possible in this case were limited to a narrow engine speed range and therefore failed to fulfil the great demands made of a BMW in its all-round qualities.

The BMW Group's engine development specialists were however most
certainly able to distinguish between the fundamental potential of direct
gasoline injection and the initial - but rather limited - implementation of the concept. They therefore decided to develop VALVETRONIC throttle-free load management, a technology able to immediately provide much greater benefits in fuel economy, without losing sight of fundamental developments in the area of direct gasoline injection. And now the result is here: Introducing High Precision Fuel Injection, BMW is presenting the first power unit featuring second-generation direct gasoline injection and thus providing a significant reduction of fuel economy throughout a broad range of engine speed and load and, accordingly, under standard, everyday driving con¬ditions.

Superior competence with a far-reaching effect.
With High Precision Fuel Injection being introduced step-by-step in an
increasingly large number of model series and markets, the benefits of this technology will soon become available to a large number of customers. This broad-scale effect is important to BMW in order to measure the value of a genuine innovation in the market.

Taking the example of intelligent energy management, we see clearly that various steps in the development process can be consistently based on one another. The actual generation and use of electric energy is already masterminded with a high degree of efficiency in BMW models already successful in the market today. Future systems will serve to avoid the loss of energy to the greatest possible extent. Where that is not possible, losses will be intelligently transformed into useful forms of energy, such as the use of brake energy via Brake Energy Regeneration.

Hybrid concepts: proceeding step-by-step to series maturity.
Using Brake Energy Regeneration interacting with Intelligent Alternator Control (IAC) developed by BMW, the generation of electrical energy can now be shifted specifically and in a controlled process to the car's overrun and braking phases, converting brake energy instead of fuel into electric power. When driving under power (in traction or power phases), the energy potential provided by the fuel can be used to a greater extent to generate kinetic energy and motion, giving the car greater, enhanced dynamics. This effect clearly noticeable at the wheel is referred to as passive boosting.

With the management of electrical energy flow by means of IAC giving the vehicle a higher standard of driving dynamics "only" in an indirect process, development engineers refer to this technology as "mild-hybridisation".

The interaction of primary and electric energy becomes even more effective in the next stage, the classic hybrid concept using electric energy directly and as a supplementary driving force to power the vehicle while running on the combustion engine at the same time. This generates an active boost effect, the electric motor supporting the combustion engine in generating dynamic power and motion.

When the car is able to run in various driving situations not just on
the com¬bustion engine, but also under electric power alone, we speak of "full-hybridisation".

BMW's concept of Intelligent Alternator Control (IAC) is on the verge
to ach¬ieving production standard and was already presented at the 2005 Frankfurt Motor Show in the guise of the BMW Concept X3 EfficientDynamics. This concept car featuring Active Transmission and High-Performance Capacitors (supercaps) stands out clearly from other hybrid concepts. Its drive system ensures not only greater economy, but also a higher standard of dynamic performance by combining the output of the combustion engine and the electric motor with all their qualities. The result is maximum torque of 600 Newton-metres or 442 lb-ft for accelerating particularly fast and dynamically from engine speeds below 1,500 rpm, using the power delivered by both drive motors. In practice, this means acceleration to 100 km/h in 6.7 seconds and a top speed of 235 km/h or 146 mph. And as the name indicates, this concept car is based on the BMW X3.


Hydrogen drive: driving from today into the future.

The use of hydrogen for driving a vehicle points even further into the future, potentially offering even greater benefits. Hence, BMW's CleanEnergyconcept offers all the features and qualities required for a sustained strategy of mobility. Apart from the BMW H2R Research Vehicle, various BMW demonstration vehicles running on hydrogen are already in use today. Completing a wide range of tests under near-practical conditions, these vehicles serve to study and confirm the qualities of hydrogen drive under everyday driving conditions.

In the CleanEnergy project BMW is concentrating on the use of hydrogen in the combustion engine. This technology is lighter, more powerful and less expensive than the - conceivable - use of fuel cells. A further advantage is that production of the hydrogen combustion engine can be integrated into existing production processes.

The superior performance and great appeal of hydrogen drive developed to this standard is obvious. With its twelve-cylinder power unit developing 210 kW/285 hp maximum output, the BMW H2R Research Car has set up several records for hydrogen drive vehicles. A BMW powered by a hydrogen combustion engine is already in the process of series development and will be presented to the public in the course of the next two years.

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