BMW i3

There are many unusual things about the BMW i3 Concept electric minicar revealed last month, including its glass doors and roof, not to mention BMW's first production battery-electric powertrain. But the BMW i3 is also at the leading edge of another efficiency trend: tall, narrow tires that reduce...

With the dust settling on press days at the Frankfurt Auto Show, we can take a breath, think about what we saw, and start to sort out our impressions. One very clear message: German carmakers are taking electric cars seriously. Finally. Both Audi and BMW unveiled electric-car concepts that are...

The BMW i3's bigger brother the i8 may get all the attention from sports car fans, but as the smaller and more practical of the "i" range the i3 could be considered the more relevant of the two. We were at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show ready to capture both i-cars in all their glory. You can find...

Audi has just unveiled its all-electric A2 Concept vehicle at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show. Placed somewhere between its two-seat electric Urban Concept which we saw yesterday and its A3 hatchback, the four-seat concept is a direct competitor to BMW’s much-anticipated 2014 i3 electric car...

Instead of outdoing each other with more mass and more horsepower, the focus at teh upcoming Frankfurt Auto Show seems to be on better fuel economy and more technology for the dollar.

Were it not for imminent reveals at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show in mid September, you might think the automakers were getting careless with their upcoming models. First, Audi's E1 e-tron was caught on camera in the center of Berlin, being filmed in camoflage for an Audi promotional video. The E1...

A few months after BMW and MINI's electric car study ended in the United States, a similar scheme run in the U.K. has also come to a close, and the results are in... ...and if you've read the results of the American tests, the figures coming from the U.K. will all look very familiar. Basically, all...

Diversity among electric cars is rapidly expanding, from the all-electric Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi 'i' to the upcoming Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid, which provides just 9 to 13 miles of electric range. Now, it turns out, the 2014 BMW i3--the all-electric urban four-door subcompact that BMW showed...

Driving is often a pain, particularly in dense, congested urban cores. Start and stop, brake suddenly, stay carefully in your lane, drive defensively, then park in tight spaces. What if the car could do all that for you? Last week, BMW showed off its new BMW i3 Concept, which points the way toward...

If you were hoping for the production versions of BMW's first production EV and sports plug-in hybrid, you're out of luck, but if BMW keeps up its recent practices, the concepts unveiled today will be very close to the final cars. These live photos from the unveiling in Frankfurt should give you a...

BMW today revealed concept versions of its first-ever production electric cars: the i3 battery electric minicar and i8 plug-in hybrid sports coupe. The designs and details of both cars were unveiled in a Frankfurt press conference that was broadcast globally on the Internet. That degree of...

According to sources close to BMW the German automaker is reputedly working on five models to premiere at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show in September, including its long-awaited i3 electric car. BMW has kept details of its first mass-produced electric car quiet, although the ongoing stream of...

The upcoming BMW i3, the car formerly known as the Megacity Vehicle and the first production all-electric car from BMW, is set to revolutionize the way mainstream cars are engineered and built, with most of its internal structure and body being composed of lightweight composite materials such as...

For the last couple of decades, the electric car was something that most people saw as part of the automotive landscape of the future. With the introduction of the 2009 Tesla Roadster, we saw a high-end electric sports car come on the market that was viable. Now, with cars like the 2011 Chevrolet...

Not so long ago, the notion of luxury German brand BMW hiring an engineer from General Motors might have been a stretch. The company prefers to promote engineers from within its Munich engineering headquarters. But reports that Frank Weber, the lead engineer of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt team, has...

The automotive world has been waiting to for the BMW MegaCity to be introduced, but we will have to wait a long time for that. Recently, BMW announced that they will be renaming the MegaCity and future eco-conscious vehicles and placing them under a new brand—BMWi. The new BMWi range is being...

Its just about to launch trails of its rear-wheel drive electric Active E sedan, but German automaker BMW has just announced a whole new sub-brand for electric and plug-in hybrid BMWs. Called the BMWi, the range will encompass BMW’s eco-conscious vehicles and offer unprecedented...

Auto marketers and PR people have a love-hate relationship with the Internet. It lets them connect directly with users and fans, but it also transmits facts, leaks, and rumors at lightning speed. That meant that this morning's BMW press conference, telecast live from BMW Welt in a snowy Munich...