1999 Bmw Z3 M Coupe Coupe 2-door 3.2l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

BMW adds on-street parking to DriveNow carsharing in SF

BMW is putting a new spin on the concept of the San Francisco treat. The German automaker cut a deal to clear out 80 street-parking spaces for its DriveNow car-sharing program in the notoriously parking-constrained City by the Bay. Bimmer is also more than doubling its all-electric ActiveE car-sharing fleet in San Francisco to 150 vehicles from 70. Starting later this month, customers will be able to access the DriveNow website or app to find, reserve and park the electric Bimmers on certain streets in San Francisco's Mission district. Once the car is ready to be turned back in, the vehicle's in-car screen will also indicate what "drop-off" zones the driver can use to end the reservation. It's all very high-tech, and BMW is looking to expand the program to other San Francisco neighborhoods like Bernal Heights, the Haight, Noe Valley and Potrero Hill. There's also a contest for users to name the 80 new vehicles, but it involves a really complicated lettering system. "New" here means new to DriveNow, since these ActiveE electric vehicles are really those that were, until recently, used by the Electronauts in BMW's EV leasing program. Since those leases are ending, the cars need to go somewhere. We think carsharing is a great home for them. BMW, which also runs DriveNow in the German cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Dusseldorf, said in March that it was looking to add the service to as many as 15 more cities in Europe as well as another 10 in the US. BMW debuted DriveNow in San Francisco in August 2012, though parking the cars has always been an issue. Check out BMW's press release below. BMW Group's DriveNow Car-Sharing Service Expands to Street Parking in San Francisco. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and BMW Group board member Dr. Ian Robertson provided details about DriveNow at a news conference on ... Eighty All-Electric BMW ActiveE Vehicles Added to the DriveNow Fleet to Increase the Convenience of Finding and Parking Emission-Free Cars. San Francisco, CA – May 8, 2014... BMW Group subsidiary DriveNow, a flexible, premium car-sharing program, will expand to offer street parking in multiple neighborhoods in San Francisco, beginning in select areas of the Mission District and will add 80 electric BMW ActiveE vehicles to the existing fleet, increasing the total number of ActiveE vehicles in the San Francisco Bay Area to 150. DriveNow members will have the opportunity to name the 80 electric vehicles in a two-week social media challenge.

AC Schnitzer packs 400-hp, tri-turbo diesel into 1 Series

At first blush, this might look like your run-of-the-mill BMW 1 Series, maybe with a few modifications. What you're actually looking at is a monster hot hatch with 400 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque. From a diesel. For this year's Essen Motor Show – Germany's equivalent to SEMA – the Bimmer specialists at AC Schnitzer prepared the ACS1 5.0d concept you see here. Its selling point (if only it were for sale) is the combination of BMW's most powerful diesel engine and its smallest model. It utilizes the 3.0-liter triple-turbocharged inline-six diesel engine from the M50d versions of the 5 Series, X5, and X6 sold in Europe. That engine is normally rated at 376 hp and 545 lb-ft, which is already a ton of muscle. But Schnitzer has bumped up the output on both counts, and slotted it into a 1 Series hatchback. The result is a 0-62 time of just 4.5 seconds, leaving the M135i and M235i in a cloud of diesel soot. Of course, Schnitzer has plenty more to showcase at Essen this year, including modifications for the 3 Series, X6 M, and Mini JCW. And you can bet all the other major European tuners will be on hand at the expo to show their wares, too. But as far as outlandish creations go, this monster diesel hot hatch is what's caught our attention. Compact and incredibly powerful The 1-series by AC Schnitzer with impressive motorsport quality At first sight, you do not expect brute force from the BMW 1-series. So the performance of the compact Bavarian after the AC Schnitzer tuning experts have equipped it with the M50d power plant and impressive performance upgrade, is even more incredible. Originally designed for the 5-series, the "Diesel M-Technik" pack propels the 1-series a long way forward. The smallest BMW series now has an impressive drive concept from AC Schnitzer. After the performance upgrade, the concept engine of the ACS1 5.0d delivers 294 kW/400 hp and 800 Nm torque for generous thrust. Equipped in this way, it takes just 4.5 seconds to sprint from 0-100 km/h. The acceleration from 80-180 km/h is even more impressive: the ACS1 5.0d takes just 7.9 second for this. The smallest of the compacts, the 114i, is already impressive thanks to a power increase by 52 hp to 154 hp. The four-cylinder petrol engine of the 116i, thanks to motorsport technology, now delivers 204 hp instead of 136 hp. The same figure is also achieved by the 118i, which previously had 170 horses under the bonnet.

BMW X2 spied looking swirly

Generally, automakers really hate spy photos. They go to great lengths to disguise their cars, while engineers will do their damnedest to get away from spy shooters (or, you know, they just give them the bird). BMW, though, just doesn't seem to care about spies. That's the only reason to explain why our spy photographers were able to capture yet another X2 crossover undergoing testing on the sunny, autumnal German roads. Judging by the number plates, this is a different vehicle than the last couple of X2s we've spied, although it's camouflaged almost identically to last month's X2. This car does appear to have larger, sportier wheels than that blue prototype, although the similar bumpers has us thinking it's merely an optional wheel rather than the an M Sport model. Beyond that, though, there's not a lot to differentiate this X2 from previous sightings. Our spies continue to report that the X2 will echo the powertrain/drivetrain arrangement of the upcoming X1. It'll ride on that car's front-drive architecture, although like the X1, all-wheel drive will be optional in Europe and standard here in the US. The engine lineup, meanwhile, should include turbocharged triples, fours, and sixes, in both gas and diesel varieties. Here in the US, we'd expect the 28i and its 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder, at the very least. Considering the lifestyle angle of the X2, a more powerful 35i model would likely be a natural here in the US, but that's just conjecture. Have a look at the spy shots up at the top of the page. Related Video: